MRSEC: Micro- and Nano- Mechanics of Materials

布朗大学的MRSEC致力于材料力学领域的研究。在所有先进和新兴材料中，力学问题比比皆是。坚固、坚韧、耐用的轻质高温结构材料是实现能效的直接途径。在电子学中，导致器件退化的缺陷是由高应力形成的，而器件制造过程中的应力控制是一个主要问题。然而，应力可以驱动量子点等有用结构的形成。有许多生物现象，其中压力是主要驱动力。因此，力学是整个功能系统中材料行为的发明、设计和表现的一个组成部分。该中心的研究将侧重于三个领域：(I)薄膜和小尺度结构的力学，重点是它们的形成、稳定性和生长过程中产生的应力；(Ii)复杂多相材料的力学，重点是微米和纳米尺度的变形、断裂和疲劳的预测和机制；(Iii)生物系统中的黏附机理，重点是区分正常和异常细胞功能的材料行为的量化范围。该中心还有广泛的教育和推广计划，其广泛目标是让年轻学生接触到科学的刺激；为教师提供在课堂上加强科学所需的工具；让本科生接触高水平的研究，同时为少数族裔和女性提供一个环境，将研究生教育作为一条有吸引力的职业道路；以及加强合作机构的新本科生工程课程。该中心的教育部分由参与的MRSEC教员管理，因此与研究工作以及本科生和研究生教学密切相关。该中心有大约20名布朗教员，主要来自工程部，还管理着许多中央实验研究设施，如扫描电子显微镜和分子束外延，可供布朗社区和工业用户使用。该中心的参与者与世界各地的研究人员互动，并与许多行业开展合作项目，其中最著名的是通用汽车公司，在这些项目中，在基础MRSEC研究中开发的独特能力被应用于具有技术重要性的问题。

Brown University's MRSEC has a research thrust in the area of Mechanics of Materials. Mechanics issues abound across the full scope of advanced and emerging materials. Strong, tough and durable lightweight and high-temperature structural materials are a direct route to energy efficiency. In electronics, the defects that degrade devices are nucleated by high stresses, and the control of stress during device fabrication is a major issue. Yet, stress can drive the formation of useful structures such as quantum dots. There are a host of biological phenomena wherein stress is a primary driving force. Mechanics is thus an integral part of the invention, design and representation of material behavior across the full spectrum of functional systems. Research in the center will emphasize three areas: (i) the mechanics of thin film and small-scale structures, focusing on their formation, stability, and creation of stress during growth, (ii) the mechanics of complex multiphase materials, focusing on the prediction and mechanisms of deformation, fracture and fatigue at micron- and nanometer size scales, and (iii) the mechanics of adhesion in biological systems, focusing on quantifying ranges of material behavior discriminating between normal and abnormal cell function. The Center also has a broad spectrum of educational and outreach programs with the broad goals of exposing young students to the excitement of science; providing teachers with the tools needed to enhance science in their classrooms; exposing undergraduate students to high-level research while providing an environment for minorities and women that presents graduate education as an attractive career path; and enhance new undergraduate engineering programs at partner institutions. The education component of the Center is run by participating MRSEC faculty, and is thus intimately connected to the research efforts and the undergraduate and graduate teaching. The Center involves about twenty Brown faculty predominantly from the Division of Engineering, and also manages a host of central experimental research facilities, such as scanning electron microscope and molecular-beam epitaxy, that are available to the Brown community and industrial users. The Center participants interact with researchers across the world and have collaborative programs with a number of industries, most notably General Motors, in which the unique capabilities developed in fundamental MRSEC research are applied to problems of technological importance.