DMREF: Collaborative Research: Achieving Multicomponent Active Materials through Synergistic Combinatorial, Informatics-enabled Materials Discovery

非技术性：价格实惠、低成本的柔性电子产品将彻底改变社会对各种设备的看法和使用方式，应用范围从能源储存和转换、显示器到环境和健康监测传感器。共轭聚合物可以为电性能提供关键的功能元件；然而，控制薄膜、有源层的形态是一个关键的挑战。设计材料革新和设计我们的未来(DMREF)项目融合了聚合物设计、合成和加工、高通量组合材料发现、多尺度材料模拟和材料信息学的知识，以刺激通过共轭聚合物和电惰性聚合物的混合物实现的新一代柔性、可拉伸和高温半导体的发现，这些半导体表现出前所未有的强大性能。这些发现将使柔性电子产品的广泛商业化和应用成为可能。此外，该项目将开发可推广的材料基因组方法，用于在有机电子系统中整合高通量实验和信息学。学生参与者将获得多学科的好处。他们将接受交叉培训，并有机会通过相关的更多合作来扩大他们的知识和经验；将鼓励他们根据个人兴趣和职业目标参与扩大经验，如工业实习、教学实习和能源政策课程。PIS将建立在现有的针对女性研究生的指导计划的基础上，以每月持续的午餐小组为中心，为学生提供职业发展和领导机会，并通过其他计划扩大其覆盖范围，包括研讨会演讲者和小组讨论。技术：负担得起的、低成本的柔性电子产品将彻底改变社会对设备的看法和使用，应用范围从能量存储和转换、显示器，或用于环境和健康监测的传感器。然而，要满足目标应用的功能和经济要求以及大规模基于溶液的添加剂制造工艺的限制，需要越来越复杂的溶液配方。在绝缘基质中稀释活性半导体聚合物是以经济可行的方法实现所需功能属性的一个令人兴奋的新兴机会。在这方面，一个关键的挑战是控制薄膜、有源层的形态，以实现卓越的电荷传输性能，这对于预期的应用将是必不可少的。在这里，新的聚合物化学与材料建模相结合，以探索溶液和混合物中的电子性质和分子尺度的相互作用和动力学，以指导高通量实验。然后，这些数据将作为材料信息学方法的关键输入，这些方法将在成分、结构和加工之间建立关键联系。目标是建立材料基因组，为沿着结构-加工-功能范例的所有阶段的材料发展提供知识。该项目将创建一个整体基础，将分子结构与聚合物链动力学从溶液水平到固化薄膜形态再到电子性能联系起来；并推动实现无处不在、经济高效和可持续的有机电子。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-technical: Affordable, low-cost flexible electronics will revolutionize how society thinks about and uses devices in applications ranging from energy storage and conversion, displays, or sensors for environmental and health monitoring. Conjugated polymers can provide the key functional component for electrical performance; however, control of the thin-film, active-layer morphology presents a key challenge. This Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) project merges knowledge from polymer design, synthesis and processing, high-throughput combinatorial materials discovery, multiscale materials simulation, and materials informatics to stimulate the discovery of new generations of flexible, stretchable and high-temperature semiconductors enabled by blends of conjugated polymers and electrically inert polymers that exhibit unprecedented and robust performance. The discoveries will enable the widespread commercialization and utilization of flexible electronics. In addition, the project will develop generalizable materials genome methods for integration of high-throughput experiment and informatics in organic electronic systems. Students participants will realize multidisciplinary benefits. They will be cross-trained and have opportunities to expand their knowledge and experience through relevant additional collaborations; and they will be encouraged to participate in broadening experiences, such as industrial internships, teaching practicums and energy policy courses, based on individual interests and career goals. The PIs will build upon existing mentoring programs for female graduate students, using ongoing monthly lunch groups as a hub to provide professional development and leadership opportunities for students, expanding its reach through additional programs, including seminar speakers and panel discussions.Technical: Affordable, low-cost flexible electronics will revolutionize how society thinks about and uses devices in applications ranging from energy storage and conversion, displays, or sensors for environmental and health monitoring. However, satisfying the functional and economic requirements of target applications and the constraints of large-scale solution-based additive fabrication processes requires increasingly complex solution formulations. Dilution of the active semiconducting polymer in an insulating matrix is an exciting and emerging opportunity to achieve the desired functional attributes in an economically viable approach. In that regard a key challenge is control of the thin-film, active-layer morphology to achieve exceptional levels of charge transport performance that will be imperative for envisioned applications. Here, new polymer chemistry is combined with materials modeling to explore electronic properties and molecular scale interactions and dynamics in solution and blends to inform high-throughput experiments. These data will then serve as the key inputs of materials informatics approaches that will establish critical connections among composition, structure and processing. The objective is to build the materials genome that will provide knowledge to inform materials development at all stages along the structure-processing-function paradigm. The project will create a holistic foundation connecting molecular structure to polymer chain dynamics from the solution level to solidified thin-film morphology to electronic performance; and motivate the realization of ubiquitous, cost-effective and sustainable organic electronics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.