The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Chicago supports interactive research in four major groups covering a broad area of condensed matter and materials science. Researchers in the group concerned with surface dynamics seek to develop an improved molecular-level understanding of interfacial phenomena over a range from relatively simple atomic adsorbates to complex molecular systems. Investigators in the group focused on disordered materials attempt to elucidate the means by which macroscopic order can emerge from microscopic disorder. The group investigating mesoscale structure and response addresses a broad class of technologically important materials whose fundamental behavior is dominated by the physics and chemistry of constituents at the mesoscopic length scale. The group of researchers involved with the investigation of the macroscopic dynamics of materials combines experiment, theory and computer simulation to explore macroscopic motion within materials and moving phase boundaries. These problems bear on such critical and diverse technological issues as processing of powders, oil recovery, electrodeposition procedures, and oxidation of alloys. The MRSEC also supports the development, operation and maintenance of shared experimental facilities for materials research. It provides seed funding for exploratory research and fosters research participation by undergraduates. The MRSEC is associated with an educational outreach program with special emphasis on attracting and keeping women and underrepresented minorities in science. The MRSEC has an industrial visitors program and a newly formed industrial liaison committee. There is an active research collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory. The MRSEC currently involves 25 senior personnel, 10 postdoctoral research associates, 8 technical staff members, 21 graduate students, and 10 undergraduates. The Chicago MRSEC is directed by Professor Leo Kad anoff.

The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Brandeis University supports innovative research and education in an exciting subject at the interface between materials science and biology. The major research theme of the Center is to develop fundamental understanding of emergent properties of materials due to constraints similar to those occurring in biological systems, and in understanding the role of constraints in the structure and function of cells and cellular components. This is an interdisciplinary Center with twelve senior investigators from four departments at Brandeis University, and one each from Brown University and Olin College of Engineering. The MRSEC provides a multidisciplinary education for students in physics, chemistry and biology, that will contribute to the workforce at the research frontiers and to the needs of emerging biomaterials industries. Other educational programs include research experiences for undergraduates, and pre-college outreach through teacher training. The MRSEC offers a program targeted to inner-city minority science undergraduates at Brandeis. Scientists at the Center work with the Discovery Museums in Acton, MA, to develop interactive exhibits in the area of biological physics and materials science. The Center provides novel facilities for research in the emerging area of microfluidics and is collaborating with industry to develop microfluidics technologies.
Research at the Center is organized as a single Interdisciplinary Research Group with three main thrusts that explore how the addition of constraints typically found in biology - confinement, crowding, and local forces that compete with and sometimes frustrate long range order - leads to emergent properties, in the realms of both structure and dynamics. The research thrusts are structure and dynamics of long polymer molecules, such as DNA, in tightly confined volumes; self-assembly of "chiral" or twisted molecules that lead to unusual structures; and "active matter" composed of organized assemblies of self-powered particles that move in space or oscillate in time.

IRG2 explores a new class of crystalline oxides enabled by configurational entropy which offers exciting functional properties and pathways to new basic science.

Crystals with high configurational entropy, engineered through chemical formulation, exhibit unique composition-structure-property combinations that are absent when chemical order prevails. These high-entropy materials follow unexpected crystal chemistry rules and hold promise for new functional properties. IRG2 endeavors to identify and understand these rules through an integrative effort linking theory, synthesis, characterization, and computation. The hypothesis driving this research is that high configurational entropy leads to high solubility for atoms in “misfit” local environments, which produces a spectrum of local energies and disordered geometries that collectively generate new macroscopic responses. The IRG seeks to understand how local structures relate to specific formulations and how short-range disorder couples over longer length scales. With this understanding, we will uncover the predictive rules for high-entropy crystal chemistry.

IRG2 is organized into four interwoven thrusts. Three of these are property-driven and endeavor to understand:

• How electronic and ionic transport can be maximized in high-entropy perovskites and fluorites 

• How local distortions can influence global symmetry and polar ordering in high-entropy perovskites with disorder on both cation sublattices

• How electron correlation and magnetism manifest in high-entropy rock salts and pyrochlores. 

In each case we explore the limits of misfit cations in a parent high-symmetry structure, where the misfits are chosen so as to influence property evolution. An overarching multiscale theory and modeling effort couples to machine learning to predict structure, defect chemistry, and properties in all materials of interest. At small length scales first-principles calculations model and predict the entire landscape of local distortions in particular formulations and link them to local properties such as ion migration barrier, defect formation energy, band structure, and polarizability. First-principles data feeds phase-field and stochastic models at higher length scales to connect formulation, local structure, electronic structure, and crystal structure to cooperative responses, and microstructures.

IRG1 2D Polar Metals and Heterostructures pursues the promise of a new materials platform that stabilizes a diverse array of two-dimensional polar metals and enables their integration into ground-breaking optically and electronically active heterostructures. 

Metals and alloys sit at the heart of materials research, but their susceptibility to surface oxidation has impeded their investigation in atomically thin form or as pristine surfaces exposed to the ambient environment. Thus, metals are generally not considered to be electrostatically gateable, rarely strongly polar, and typically not straightforward constituents of complex quantum hetero-structures due to interfacial reactions.   IRG1 surmounts these challenges and opens up new areas of fundamental science and application for metals and their alloys through in-situ encapsulation and heterostructure formation that takes advantage of the protected high-energy interface underneath epitaxial graphene and exploits a self-healing effect that yields air-stable atomically thin crystalline metals that are also polar, with exceptional nonlinear optical response and intriguing potential for impacts in quantum devices and biosensing. 

The IRG converges expertise in synthesis, optics and spectroscopy, transport, spintronics, device engineering, biosensing, theory and data-driven computation to exploit the unique opportunities in fundamental science and application afforded by air-stable crystalline 2D metals and alloys. These efforts will be accelerated by predictive computation to guide synthesis and application within the expansive compositional design space that CHet endows, and will open new routes to Quantum Leap, enable new sensing modalities for elucidating the Rules of Life, and provide an intriguing venue to Harness the Data Revolution. The team's efforts are organized around quantum and optical property domains, tied together by a central thrust in synthesis of novel structures, compositions and heterostructures of air-stable polar 2D metals.

This IRG is pursuing new insights into the behavior of mechanically soft systems that are subjected to perturbations far from equilibrium. By combining data-rich experiments, theory, and artificial intelligence, the research will contribute greatly to NSF's 10 Big Ideas: Harnessing the Data Revolution by expanding its application to soft materials. While our focus is on soft materials, the insights gained will be broadly applicable to other classes of materials, spanning a wide range of length and time scales.

^{Figure 1. IRG 2 goals}

To carry out the research, we bring together a multidisciplinary research team composed of faculty members from applied mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, earth and planetary science, soft matter physics, and mechanical engineering with deep expertise in soft materials assembly (Lewis, Weitz, Whitesides), fracture mechanics (Holbrook, Rice, Suo), 4D confocal imaging and materials characterization (Spaepen, Vlassak), machine learning and computer simulation (Brenner, Colwell, Denolle, Frenkel, Kozinsky), and theory (Nelson) to focus on three goals that exploit data-driven science (Figure 1).

1. Understand crystal nucleation in single and multi-component hard-sphere systems and use the knowledge gained to develop new routes for creating alloys.

2. Investigate collective dislocation motion that underlies plastic deformation of materials.

3. Explore fracture phenomena in mechanically soft systems to understand their toughening, dissipation, and failure mechanisms.

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This IRG is aimed at fundamental advances in materials synthesis, modeling, and 3D printing that enable the creation of functional soft materials that augment human performance. New classes of soft materials that sense, actuate, and communicate are being developed for use in wearables, haptic interfaces, and artificial muscles connecting to NSF's 10 Big Ideas: Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier.

^{Figure 1. IRG 1 goals}

To carry out the this research, we bring together a multidisciplinary research team composed of faculty members from applied mathematics, bioengineering, chemistry, materials, and mechanical engineering with deep expertise in theory and computation (Bertoldi, Kozinsky, Mahadevan, Rycroft, Suo), synthesis and assembly (Aizenberg, Clarke, Lewis, Parker, Vaia, Weitz), and characterization (Bertoldi, Clarke, Pindak, Suo, Walsh) to focus on three intertwined goals (Figure 1).

1. Establish predictive design rules that guide the synthesis and digital assembly of soft functional materials across multiple scales.

2. Synthesize soft building blocks composed of functional elastomers with controlled network architecture and stimuli-responsive moieties for creating soft functional materials.

3. Create functional soft matter via digital assembly that sense, communicate, and actuate in response to external stimuli for potential application at the human-technology interface.

IRG 1, Materials Science of Quantum Phenomena in van der Waals Heterostructures, combines two-dimensional van der Waals materials into pristine layered heterostructures. Under an existing MIRT program, this team has demonstrated successful collaboration to develop proof-of-concept heterostructures with unprecedented size, perfection, and complexity, giving us the ideal building blocks for the current effort.

This IRG focuses on three research thrusts:

1. Expanding the class of available materials, particularly using synthetic methods that produce large-area films;

2. Measuring and controlling the properties of atomically thin vdW materials in a protected, ultralow-disorder environment; and

3. Creating new interfaces that exhibit emergent electronic phenomena.

IRG 2, Controlling Electrons, Phonons, and Spins in Superatomic Materials, assembles new classes of functional materials using precisely defined superatom building blocks coupled together with new forms of inter-superatom bonding. This approach will combine encoding of desirable physical properties within the building blocks with exquisite control of inter-superatom interaction, to create materials with tunable properties and multiple functionalities.

This IRG will develop and expand the superatom concept into a large "periodic table" to enable designer materials with unprecedented levels of complexity and functionality. It will initially focus on three materials areas:

1. Materials with independent control over magnetism and conductivity.

2. Materials with independent control over thermal and electrical transport properties.

3. Superatom assemblies that can have electronic phase transitions that may be induced by optical, mechanical, thermal, and other stimuli.

his Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of New York at Stony Brook supports research in the area of polymer thin films at engineered interfaces. The MRSEC is a collaborative activity between researchers at a number of institutions in the New York metropolitan area, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Polytechnic University, Queens College, Lehman College, and two industrial research and development centers. The research is carried out in one interdisciplinary research group. The focus of the Center is the design of polymer thin film properties through precise control of interfacial structure. A central goal of the Center is to address technological problems related to polymer thin films, and to develop cutting-edge enabling technologies that take existing polymeric systems and markedly improve their properties. The MRSEC supports the development, operation and maintenance of shared experimental facilities for materials research. It provides seed funding for exploratory research and emerging areas, and fosters research participation by undergraduates. The MRSEC has strong industrial links and an educational outreach program from the pre-college to the graduate level. The Center currently supports 12 senior investigators, 3 postdoctoral research associates, 10 graduate students, and 6 undergraduates. The MRSEC is directed by Professor Miriam Rafailovich. %%% This Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of New York at Stony Brook supports research in the area of polymer thin films at engineered interfaces. The MRSEC is a collaborative activity between researchers at a number of institutions in the New York metropolitan area, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Polytechnic University, Queens College, Lehman College, and two industrial research and development centers. The research is carried out in one interdisciplinary research group. The focus of t he Center is the design of polymer thin film properties through precise control of interfacial structure. A central goal of the Center is to address technological problems related to polymer thin films, and to develop cutting-edge enabling technologies that take existing polymeric systems and markedly improve their properties. The MRSEC supports the development, operation and maintenance of shared experimental facilities for materials research. It provides seed funding for exploratory research and emerging areas, and fosters research participation by undergraduates. The MRSEC has strong industrial links and an educational outreach program from the pre-college to the graduate level. The Center currently supports 12 senior investigators, 3 postdoctoral research associates, 10 graduate students, and 6 undergraduates. The MRSEC is directed by Professor Miriam Rafailovich.