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

非技术：经济实惠，低成本的柔性电子产品将彻底改变社会对从能源存储和转换，显示或环境和健康监测传感器等应用中的设备的看法和使用方式。共轭聚合物可以提供电气性能的关键功能组件；然而，薄膜的控制，活性层的形态提出了一个关键的挑战。这个设计材料来革新和设计我们的未来（DMREF）项目将聚合物设计、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结合起来，刺激新一代柔性、可拉伸和高温半导体的发现，这些半导体由共轭聚合物和电惰性聚合物混合而成，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，以整合有机电子系统中的高通量实验和信息学。学生参与将实现多学科效益。他们将接受交叉培训，并有机会通过相关的额外合作扩大他们的知识和经验；此外，学校还将鼓励他们根据个人兴趣和职业目标，参加工业实习、教学实习和能源政策课程等拓展经验的活动。这些项目将以现有的女研究生辅导项目为基础，利用正在进行的每月午餐小组为中心，为学生提供专业发展和领导能力的机会，并通过研讨会演讲和小组讨论等其他项目扩大其影响范围。技术方面：经济实惠、低成本的柔性电子产品将彻底改变社会对从能源存储和转换、显示或环境和健康监测传感器等应用中的设备的看法和使用方式。然而，满足目标应用的功能和经济要求以及大规模基于溶液的增材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一个令人兴奋和新兴的机会，可以以经济可行的方法实现所需的功能属性。在这方面，一个关键的挑战是控制薄膜，有源层的形态，以达到特殊水平的电荷传输性能，这将是必不可少的预期应用。在这里，新的聚合物化学与材料建模相结合，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，以告知高通量实验。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，该基因组将为沿着结构-加工-功能范式的各个阶段的材料开发提供知识。该项目将建立一个整体基础，从溶液水平到固化薄膜形态再到电子性能，将分子结构与聚合物链动力学联系起来；并推动实现无处不在，具有成本效益和可持续的有机电子产品。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.