[2] Hyeon is recognized by his pioneering work in chemical synthesis of uniformly sized nanocrystals and various applications of functional nanomaterials.

Hyeon is a leading scientist in the area of synthesis, assembly, and biomedical applications of uniformly sized nanoparticles.

With this simple and inexpensive method, his group went on to design and fabricate multifunctional nanostructured materials for biomedical applications.

Hyeon developed a new T1 MRI contrast agent using biocompatible manganese oxide (MnO) nanoparticles, exhibiting detailed anatomic structures of mouse brain.

His group reported on the fabrication of monodisperse magnetite nanoparticles immobilized with uniform pore-sized mesoporous silica spheres for simultaneous MRI, fluorescence imaging, and drug delivery.