Materials Research Science and Engineering Center on Polymers

马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校的聚合物材料研究科学与工程中心(MRSEC)将整合来自七个系的27名教职员工和26名研究生的专业知识。聚合物合成、物理和工程方面的基本挑战将在定向聚合物组装(集成研究小组，IRG-I)中解决，该组织将寻求基于纳米元件和与功能纳米设备相关的纳米限制的分层有序聚合物系统。聚合物表面不稳定性(IRG-II)将定义一种新的材料设计范式，它着眼于弹性不稳定性来控制聚合物表面形态，将不稳定性产生的结构排列成层次结构，并利用不稳定性动力学来产生快速和选择性的响应。该中心将支持几个种子项目。一个大型的种子努力，离子液体中的聚合物，将使聚合物和离子液体在固体、流体和界面环境中聚集在一起。离子液体的独特特性将催生新的化学、材料和加工策略，以及解决整个聚合物科学领域长期存在的材料问题的方法。用于细菌控制的聚合物表面和两亲性聚电解质上的另一个大种子显示出快速科学增长的潜力，这应该反映出相关技术在社会中的扩展。中心参与了首尔国立大学的全球研究实验室、东北大学的高级材料研究所，以及中心与国家实验室之间的合作努力，将大大加强这些研究工作。MRSEC与芒特霍利奥克学院、史密斯学院、加州大学河滨分校、佛蒙特州大学和霍华德大学的本科教育项目建立了牢固的联系。这种广泛的专业知识使该中心能够解决拟议的跨学科研究问题，并确保提供一个适合教育和激励材料科学和工程前沿学生的环境。该中心运营着12个共享的实验设施，使中心研究人员能够以最低的个人研究成本对维护密集型、最先进的设备进行前沿研究。为了刺激对能源转换的研究，这是我们今天面临的一个紧迫的社会问题，该中心开设了一个光伏设施，允许研究人员在惰性大气中制造和测量光伏设备的效率。该中心与其他几家MRSEC一起，最近成立了材料研究设施网络，极大地扩展了任何一个中心的仪器能力，并促进全美各地的研究人员更多地使用NSF资助的仪器。该中心与工业和政府实验室有多种牢固的联系。该中心得益于与UMASS聚合物工业研究中心和研究联络与发展办公室的密切互动，这两个机构是向工业部门转让技术的两个有效渠道。麻省理工学院和质量顶峰学院是两所校园学院，分别专注于与纳米科学和能源相关的行业感兴趣的研究项目。

The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) on Polymers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will integrate the expertise of 27 faculty members and 26 graduate students from seven departments. Fundamental challenges in polymer synthesis, physics, and engineering will be addressed in Directed Polymer-Based Assemblies (Integrated Research Group, IRG-I), which will seek hierarchically ordered polymer systems based on nanoscopic elements and nanoconfinement relevant to functional nanodevices. Polymer Surface Instabilities (IRG-II) will define a new materials design paradigm, one that looks to elastic instabilities to control polymer surface morphology, arranging structures resulting from instabilities into hierarchies and exploiting instability dynamics to generate rapid and selective response. The Center will support several Seed Programs. One large Seed effort, Polymers in Ionic Liquids, will bring polymers and ionic liquids together in solid, fluid and interfacial environments. The unique characteristics of ionic liquids will foster new chemistries, materials, and processing strategies along with means to resolve longstanding materials problems from across the polymer science field. Another large seed on Polymer Surfaces for Bacterial Control and Amphiphilic Polyelectrolytes, shows potential for rapid scientific growth, which should mirror expansion of associated technologies in society. These research efforts will be significantly enhanced by the Center's involvement in the Global Research Laboratory at Seoul National University, the Advanced Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University, and collaborative efforts between the Center and national laboratories. Strong ties have been established between the MRSEC and undergraduate educational programs at Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, the University of California at Riverside, the University of Vermont, and Howard University. This sweeping expertise uniquely positions the Center to address the proposed interdisciplinary research problems and ensures an environment suited to educating and stimulating students at the forefront of materials science and engineering. The Center operates twelve Shared Experimental Facilities to enable Center researchers to perform forefront research on maintenance-intensive, state-of-the-art equipment at minimal cost to the individual researcher. To stimulate research in energy conversion, a pressing societal problem we face today, the Center opened a Photovoltaics Facility, allowing researchers to fabricate and measure the efficiency of photovoltaic devices under an inert atmosphere. Along with several other MRSECs, the Center recently formed the Materials Research Facilities Network, vastly expanding the instrumentation capabilities of any one Center and promotes the greater use of NSF-funded instrumentation by researchers across the U.S. The Center has multiple strong ties to industrial and government laboratories. The Center benefits from close interactions with the Center for UMass-Industry Research on Polymers and the Research Liaison and Development Office, two effective conduits for technology transfer to the industrial sector. MassNanoTech and Mass-Crest, two campus institutes, respectively focus on nanoscience- and energy-related research projects of interest to industry.