Skip to content Skip to navigation

Program Highlights

PointNet-meso: A Tool for Detecting Self-Assembled Block Oligomer Morphologies

Screening block oligomer chemistry and architecture through molecular simulations to find promising candidates for functional materials requires effective morphology identification techniques. Common strategies for structure identification include structure factors and order parameters, but these fail to identify imperfect structures in simulations with incorrect system sizes.

Trainable shear memory in dense suspensions

A collaboration between the University of Chicago MRSEC groups of Jaeger, Patel, and Rowan showed that the complex modulus of a dense suspension of microparticles can be increased exponentially over several orders of magnitude by applying interval training during oscillatory shear, leading to a structural memory. 

Soft Matter for All: Celebrating Diversity and Creativity in Soft Matter

MRSEC faculty at Princeton University and the University of Delaware co-hosted a virtual symposium celebrating early-career researchers in Soft and Biological Matter with a focus on those from underrepresented groups.

Virtual Exhibition on International Education for Sustainable Textile Manufacturing

PAQM researcher Theanne Schiros creatied a virtual exhibition entitled 6878 KM. The exhibition features outreach and international sustainable development teaching natural dye chemistry to artisans, especially women, in ultra-poor communities in West Africa.

Active Control of Long-Range Exciton Transport in Superatomic Materials

Active control over exciton (electron-hole pair) transport is a much sought-after goal to create reconfigurable excitonic and optoelectronic transistors. The PAQM team achieved the first example of predictive optical control over exciton transport in semiconductors.

Deactivating Viruses Using Self-Assembling DNA Origami Shells

Researchers have developed programmable DNA origami building blocks that self-assemble into icosahedral shells, with programmable sizes. The shells can be functionalized with antibodies, enabling them to engulf and neutralize natural viruses.

Development of New Active Materials

Active materials are systems that are driven by nano scale components that consume energy and produce work. In this work, two new biochemically powered active materials were developed with unique properties that will allow for a systematic exploration of emergent non-equilibrium phenomenology.

Single-Defect Phonons Imaged by Electron Microscopy

Based on the new capabilities of the Nion HERMES 200, the UCI MRSEC team (Pan and Wu) demonstrated, for the first time, exotic atomic vibrations localized at a single stacking fault in cubic SiC, showing by an energy shift of 3.8 meV and an obvious intensity modulation of the acoustic phonon mode.

Hierarchical Assembly of Structurally Oriented Metal-Organic Frameworks as Novel Ionic Conductors

Liquefied gas electrolytes enable low temperature operation due to their low freezing point. However, their high vapor pressure poses a safety concern. Can confinement of these gas electrolytes in a nanoscale material enhance electrochemical performance while minimizing the hazards?

Pages