Cornell Center for Materials Research - MRSEC

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Nontechnical Abstract: The Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR), a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, is enhancing national capabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields and materials research at all levels through an integrated research and education program. The central mission of the Center is to explore and advance the design, control, and fundamental understanding of materials through collaborative experimental and theoretical studies. The Center focuses on forefront scientific challenges of a scope and complexity requiring the combined expertise of interdisciplinary teams of researchers and collaborators. In doing so, the Center is developing the underlying science needed, for example, to advance next-generation computer memories, to enable information processing with light, and to realize a new class of self-folding devices based on atomically-thin, paper-like materials. Through these research activities, the Center is educating a diverse cadre of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars to become leaders in the field of materials research at industrial, academic, and government organizations, while also developing pedagogical materials for K-12 classrooms that excite and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. The CCMR Shared Facilities enable frontier research while enhancing the nation's infrastructure for advanced research and development.Technical Abstract: The goal of the Mechanisms, Materials, and Devices for Spin Manipulation IRG is to discover, understand, and apply new mechanisms for controlling spins in magnetic devices. The Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRG's) research aims to provide the scientific foundations for energy-efficient nonvolatile memories with revolutionary capabilities as well as frequency-agile nanoscale microwave sources and signal-processing devices. The goal of the Structured Materials for Strong Light-Matter Interactions IRG is to understand, create, and harness exceptionally strong and unconventional light-matter interactions for scientific discoveries and future photonic information processing technology. The IRG aims to enhance the nonlinear effects that enable photon-photon and photon-matter interactions and to efficiently create and control the emission of high-quality single photons for quantum optical technology. The IRG is designing, fabricating, and testing "structured materials:" high-performance optical materials that are sculpted on the nano- or mesoscale to enhance their optical properties, enabling stronger photon-photon and photon-material interactions. The goal of the 2D Atomic Membranes for 3D Systems IRG is to explore the fundamental challenges associated with transducing small local signals into global observable changes at nanoscale dimensions in a targeted design structure. To do this, the group is combining recent advances in two-dimensional atomic membranes growth with the scale-invariant properties of the centuries-old art forms of origami ("ori" = fold) and kirigami ("kiri" = cut). Their aim is to take miniaturization to its ultimate limit, creating atomically thin "paper" materials that self-fold into incredibly responsive structures with lateral features at the micron to nanometer scale. Through a series of integrated educational activities, the CCMR is impacting K-12 teachers and students; undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral scholars; and faculty.