EAGER: Magnetic Interrogation Of Mesoscale Materials

该项目将资助三个当代领域的研究，为佛罗里达农工大学（FAMU）和美国国家高磁场实验室（NHMFL）（一个NSF机构）之间的全面合作奠定基础。FAMU是一所以教学为主的HBCU，它的教师将与NHMFL的工作人员合作，研究新的催化剂、制备硬/软磁材料和纳米级蛋白质组装的新技术。这项合作活动将为FAMU的教师和学生提供重要的新研究机会，并将在机构之间建立长期关系。拟议的活动将加强现有物理学博士课程的活动，并将支持化学博士课程的发展。将开发的多学科项目将显著影响和加强物理、化学、生物和工程方面的研究，与nhmll直接相关，并将加强国家的STEM劳动力。技术摘要：提议的研究将在三个当前感兴趣的领域开展活动。它们是：1)基于磁性分子的催化剂和催化剂组件。这项工作旨在建立地球上丰富的高价金属实现水分解的基本机制。它还将为解决高价中间体的性质/结构与其对水氧化的催化活性之间的相关性提供至关重要的信息。这些研究对开发利用催化水分解的可持续能源系统具有潜在的意义。2)聚合物上部结构中观尺度弹簧交换磁体组装研究。本工作将探索利用纳米加工技术，通过自下而上形成中尺度结构来组装硬/软复合磁体的新合成方法，从而形成可控的磁畴。拟议的研究将产生新的材料，这将有可能大大减少我们对进口稀土金属的依赖。3)纳米级蛋白质和肽组装的研究。这些研究将导致对多肽自组装的不同机制的基本理解，以及这些机制如何产生由此产生的宏观性质（弹性模量，屈服应力）。这将允许控制最终性质，并能够调整肽的性质，以适应特定的应用（用作细胞和组织支架）。这些研究还将产生新的核磁共振技术，表征自组装机制，可用于研究各种其他材料的聚集和自组装。

Non-Technical AbstractThis project will funds studies in three contemporary areas that lay the foundation for a comprehensive collaboration between The Florida A & M University (FAMU) and The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), an NSF facility. Faculty at FAMU, an HBCU that is a predominantly teaching university, will collaborate with staff from the NHMFL to study new catalysts, new techniques for preparing hard/soft magnetic materials and nanoscale protein assemblies. This collaborative activity will provide important new research opportunities to faculty and students at FAMU and will seed a long term relationship between the institutions. The proposed activities will strengthen the activities in the existing doctoral program in Physics and will support the development of a doctoral program in Chemistry. The multidisciplinary program that will develop will significantly impact and enhance research in physics, chemistry, biology and engineering, with a direct link to the NHMFL and will strengthen the nations STEM workforce.Technical AbstractThe proposed studies will seed activity in three areas of current interest. These are:1) Catalyst and catalyst assemblies based on magnetic molecules. This work seeks to establish the fundamental mechanisms by which high-valent species of Earth-abundant metals achieve water splitting. It will also provide information of critical importance for addressing the correlation between the nature/structure of high-valent intermediates and their catalytic activity towards water oxidation. These studies have potential implications for the development of sustainable energy systems that take advantage of catalytic water splitting. 2) Studies of meso-scale spring-exchange magnets assembled in polymer superstructures. This work will explore new synthetic methods to assemble hard/soft composite magnets via bottom up formation of mesoscale structures to deliberately form controlled magnetic domains by utilization of nano-processing. The proposed research will result in novel materials that will have potential to substantially decrease our dependence on the imported rare-earth metals. 3) Studies of nanoscale protein and peptide assemblies. These studies will result in a fundamental understanding of the different mechanisms of self-assembly in peptides and how these mechanisms give rise to a resultant macroscopic property (elastic modulus, yield stress). This will allow control over the final property and be able to tune peptide properties towards a particular application (for use as cell and tissue scaffolds). These studies will also result in novel NMR techniques that characterize the self-assembly mechanisms which can be used to investigate aggregation and self-assembly in a wide variety of other materials.