NSF Young Investigator

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ABSTRACT CTS-9457111 MIT P.I.: Gregory Rutledge At the heart of this research initiative lies the fundamental goal of understanding and engineering polymer properties from a knowledge of first principles of constituent chemical structure. The need for such capability is manifested in many practical industrial problems related to the design of high performance polymers, the control of properties through nanoscale manipulation of chemical structure and morphology during processing, and current re-engineering of processes to produce better products from the same raw materials at reduced cost and with less waste. The groundwork for this plan has been laid in the development of statistical thermodynamics for complex chemical systems and the computer-aided methods therein, and in the progress made in such techniques as X-ray diffraction, solid state NMR, and scanning probe microscopy to determine the accuracy with which engineering design principles may be reliably employed to develop new technologies and new materials.