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Following a successful inaugural year in 2016, a NSF-MRSEC booth was again featured at the XXVI International Materials Research Congress (IMRC) in Cancun, Mexico on August 19-25, 2017 to increase awareness, promote international collaboration, and broaden participation from traditionally underrepresented groups in the National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (NSF-MRSEC) program. Dr. William Kung (Northwestern University), Ms. Michelle McCombs (Ohio State University), and Ms.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania discovered a unique self-assembling network structure that forms when certain liquid crystal materials separate. These networks spontaneously create intricate patterns of filaments and disc-shaped structures through a series of physical transformations driven by competing forces.

Liquid crystals, fluids with aligned phases of rod-like constituent molecules, are used in everything from computer and television displays to mood rings. “Handedness” or chirality, is ubiquitous in complex biological systems and can be controlled and quantified in synthetic materials such as cholesteric liquid crystals.

Since its inception in 1992, the NU-MRSEC has offered the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program each summer to middle-school, high-school, and community-college teachers with the principal goals of engaging them in research, developing a network of scientific colleagues, learning about new scientific and technological developments, and transferring this knowledge to the classroom. Concurrent with their summer research, teachers develop a related curriculum project to be implemented in their classrooms and shared with colleagues and administrators.

Starting in 2017, the LRSM and Singh Center for Nanotechnology hosted monthly field trips for Philadelphia middle and high school students. During these visits, students had introductory lessons on Materials Science and Nanotechnology and suited up for the clean room at the Quattrone Nanofabrication facility, where they observed and, when possible, assisted with lithography and soft-lithography. 124 students from four schools participated in the field trip program, of which 81% were URM and 96% were low-income (i.e., they qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch program).

The CDCM Arts+Sciences Collaboratory Residence Program is educating MRSEC students, post-docs and faculty about the ways in which contemporary artists are using and developing advanced technologies.

The objective of this effort is to design and develop well defined p-n heterostructures that allow the investigation of their optoelectronic properties due to interfacial interactions.

Nebraska MRSEC researchers have proposed a new concept to design high-performance ferroelectric tunnel junctions with enhanced tunneling electroresistance (TER). This design exploits property of a polar oxide material to create an ionic charge at the interface.

Teachers from Wisconsin and Puerto Rico came together in Puerto Rico in July 2017 for the capstone week of their Research Experiences for Teachers Program.

MXenes are two-dimensional (2D) ceramics made of transition metal carbides and nitrides. Unlike other 2D ceramics, MXenes have inherently good conductivity and thus are promising for various applications. Probing the local physical properties of MXenes monolayers is important for the understanding of their functional performance. Nebraska MRSEC researchers in collaboration with their colleagues at Drexel University have developed an improved method for synthesis of monolayer membranes of Nb4C3Tx MXene.