The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Northwestern University supports an interdisciplinary research program on materials with an emphasis on the nanoscale. The theme of the MRSEC is "Advancing Materials Research and Education to Improve the Quality of Life". Research is carried out in four interdisciplinary research groups, with appropriate seed projects. Within IRG 1 the Center focuses on nanostructured materials for chemical and biological sensing with the aim to develop and characterize new materials for use in making chemical and biological sensors for environmental applications. Within IRG 2 complex oxides are investigated to use materials design and synthesis in order to develop new thin film ceramic materials required for advanced photonic applications. The work in IRG 3 uses and interdisciplinary approach to develop a scientific basis for the synthesis and processing of new types of environmentally benign polymers. Finally, IRG 4, which is concerned with the architecture, transport, and binding in molecular crystals, polyelectrolyte nanocomposites, and nanoscale structures, is focused on new materials and the design of new molecular assemblies with ultimate potential applications to batteries, fuel cells, and molecular electronics. The Center features a strong pre-college educational program, including the widely disseminated Materials World Modules (MWM), as well as outstanding undergraduate and graduate educational opportunities. Of particular interest is the Master's Materials Technology Program which prepares graduates to teach materals science concepts at the community college level.

Interfaces between organic and inorganic materials are now critical to many areas of science and technology, impacting such diverse areas as efficient solid-state lighting, consumer electronics and chemical/biological sensing. Yet there remains very little understanding of how to predict and control the chemical and physical properties of these interfaces at the nanoscale. The goal of our IRG on Functional Organic-Inorganic Electronic Interfaces is to develop the ability to design, fabricate and characterize interfaces between inorganic materials and organic molecular structures in such a way as to have complete control over their structural and electronic properties.

The IRG-B team is uncovering new insights into how cells use macromolecules to function, while also using these insights toward the design of new responsive materials systems with highly tunable properties. Their research is helping to lay the foundation for a new field of "living" materials science at the interface of biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics — addressing the NSF's Big Idea "The Rules of Life."

IRG Leaders: Kathleen Stebe & Randall D. Kamien

Senior Investigators; Tobias Baumgart, Peter Collings, Dennis E. Discher, Tom C. Lubensky, Ravi Radhakrishnan, Shu Yang, Arjun Yodh

Soft matter conforms, assembles, and reconfigures in response to the geometry and chemistry of bounding surfaces and interfaces. IRG-1 aims to harness these effects to create new responsive materials and structures using complex fluids, embedded particles, micro-patterned substrates, and confining volumes. The substrates and particles will be designed with topographies, geometries, and surface chemistries selected to impose constraints on complex fluids, including wetting conditions to three-phase contact lines, anchoring conditions to liquid-crystal director fields, and curvature gradients to fluid interfaces & lipid bilayers. In this way fuller understanding of how such factors affect physical properties of soft materials will be developed, and this understanding will be used to create new materials with distinctive, dynamically reconfigurable structures and to develop design rules for controlling positions, orientations, and migration of "particles" on and within these structures.

IRG Senior Participants: Tomás Arias (Phys, co-leader), David Muller (A&EP, co-leader), Jack Blakely (MS&E), Joel D. Brock (A&EP), Paulette Clancy (C&BE), James R. Engstrom (C&BE) Collaborators: J. Anthony (U. Kentucky), D. Bowler (Univ. Coll. London), D. Dale (CHESS), R. Headrick (U. Vermont), A. Kazimirov (CHESS), H. Hwang (U. Tokyo), D. Smilgies (CHESS), Y. Suzuki (UC Berkeley), A. Woll (CHESS)

Our group aims to understand and control the dynamics of growth of complex materials and, in particular, the formation and control of the crucial interfacial layers, while fostering cross-fertilization between the organic and oxide communities. The goal is to develop the ability to fabricate heterostructures or meta-materials with the single atomic-layer precision required to achieve the ultimate in electronic device performance. We are focusing on the growth dynamics of high dielectric constant complex oxides, such as heterostructures of LaTiO3/SrTiO3, and the controlled growth of thin film organic semiconductors, such as pentacene.

The major theme of the Cornell MRSEC is mastery of materials at the atomic and molecular level. New ways to synthesize, characterize and understand interfaces and surfaces at the atomic and molecular scales must continue to be invented and exploited to enable forefront discoveries in many fields. The center is aided in these tasks by extensive shared facilities on campus supported by a large interdisciplinary materials community extending well beyond specific MRSEC projects. The Center supports an exceptionally strong education program for pre- K-12, undergraduate and graduate students and the public.

IRG 1: Defects in Nanostructures, is focused on engineering unprecedented physical properties into inorganic nanostructures by controlling defect formation and doping, and will exploit these properties to develop new technologies ranging from laser cooling to solar concentration.

The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst focuses on fundamental problems in polymer science and engineering. The Center also provides seed funding for new opportunities in polymer research. The Center supports education outreach efforts that include collaborations with nearby women's colleges and with minority institutions, development of curricular materials for middle-school students and outreach to the general public through the National Plastics Museum. The MRSEC also supports shared experimental facilities that are accessible to center participants and to outside users, and broad industrial outreach efforts.

Research in this MRSEC is organized into two interdisciplinary research groups. One group emphasizes the manipulation of polymer morphology by controlled interfacial interactions. A second group explores the use of environmentally benign supercritical carbon dioxide to enhance the efficiency of polymer processing.

To transform materials science by developing controllable far-from-equilibrium materials that crawl, flow, swim and walk, and thus mimic essential traits of living biological organisms.