The Materials and Manufacturing Summer Teachers’ Institute is a school-to-career initiative that targets STEM skills instruction for grades 7-12 in the New Haven and Bridgeport Public Schools. Three-day workshop designed to:

Metallic glass resonators can possess larger quality factors (i.e., slower rates of energy dissipation) than typical polycrystalline metals, since metallic glasses are spatially homogeneous without dislocations and other topological defects. Using numerical simulations, we studied the energy dissipation mechanisms and  measured the quality factor Q in model metallic glass cantilevers (panel (a)). We bend the cantilever to a given strain ε, release it, and measure Q from the Fourier transform of the cantilever displacement as a function of time.

Atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials exhibit superlative properties dictated by their intralayer atomic structure, which is typically derived from a limited number of thermodynamically stable bulk layered crystals (e.g., graphene from graphite). The growth of entirely synthetic 2D crystals – those with no corresponding bulk allotrope – would circumvent this dependence upon bulk thermodynamics and substantially expand the phase space available for structure-property engineering of 2D materials.

Due to their outstanding electronic properties and high optical transparency, metal oxide thin-film transistors have significant potential in state-of-the-art flat panel display technologies. Here, high performance solution-processed metal oxide thin-film transistors were realized by fabricating heterojunctions of indium oxide (In2O3) and polyethylenimine (PEI) as the semiconducting channel layer. Due to the tunable work function of the In2O3-PEI blends, electron mobilities as high as ~10 cm2V-1s-1 were obtained.

The University of Chicago MRSEC has used super-conducting circuits and piezo-electricity to manipulate single phonons in a surface acoustic wave resonator (SAW).

At the University of Chicago MRSEC, we have shown that building blocks of the biopolymers, actin and microtubule, form lyotropic liquid crystals with controllable structure and mechanics.

Students from Girard College and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf participate in lab experiments, materials science lessons, and visits to various Penn facilities. The primary purpose of the program is to introduce URG students to STEM at an early age. 

Vesicle fusion and fission processes often occur in biological systems, usually with the aid of specialized proteins. Percec, Klein, Hammer, and Baumgart carried out comprehensive fusion/fission experiments based on three membrane ingredients: hydrogenated (RH), fluorinated (RF), and hybrid-hydrogenated/fluorinated (RHF) Janus dendrimers (Figure – Top Left).

Stable glasses produced by physical vapor deposition are important to understand. They exhibit optical birefringence, which traditionally implies that the constituent molecules are aligned.

Next-generation 'smart' nanoparticle systems should be precisely engineered in size, shape and composition to introduce multiple functionalities, unattainable from a single material. Bottom-up chemical methods are prized for the synthesis of crystalline nanoparticles, i.e., nanocrystals with size-and shape-dependent physical properties, but they are less successful in achieving multifunctionality. Top-down lithographic methods can produce multifunctional nanoparticles with precise size and shape control, yet this approach becomes increasingly difficult at sizes of order 10 nm.