University of Minnesota Materials Research Science and Engineering Center

非技术描述：明尼苏达大学的材料研究科学与工程中心（MRSEC）有两个跨学科研究小组（IRG）。第一个团队的目标是通过将强局部电场直接应用于有前途的新材料来获得新的电子和磁性。这项与量子飞跃对齐的研究将实现对一系列非凡的电子相位和功能的现成控制，从而实现低功耗磁数据存储和处理、类神经元计算和纳米光子器件（如太阳能电池）的新方法。第二个团队正在开发新的和系统的方法来组装聚合物材料成双连续网络结构与上级性能组合。这些将推动多种应用，包括用于去除病毒和细菌的膜，用于新电池设计的选择性离子传输介质，治疗递送载体以及在光伏器件中更有效地操纵光的材料。调查人员为来自全国四年制大学网络，少数民族服务机构，特别是部落学院的有前途的本科生提供了广泛的研究经验。来自双子城和上中西部美洲原住民社区的高中生夏令营涉及高级研究人员、学生和博士后研究员动手实验室活动。每年有超过50，000名K-12学生参加娱乐性的演示节目，以说明基本的科学原理。与行业的密切互动涉及与25家以上公司进行竞争前合作的知识转让。共享的实验设施为全国500多名用户提供最先进的材料表征仪器。技术描述：IRG-1旨在改变对基于电解质的门控的机制、能力和应用的理解，从而实现对一系列电子相位和功能的电气控制。静电和电化学控制都是阐明离子门控所面临的最大挑战的核心，因此也是离子器件发展的核心。其中包括理解：静电学与电化学何时以及为何占主导地位;速度、可逆性和性质调制的限制;界面结构、化学和离子-载体相互作用;以及方法的普遍性。三种目标材料类别被设想来解决这些问题-金属氧化物，金属硫族化物和分子导体-选择与关键的开放问题和非凡的功能对齐。IRG-2的首要目标是确定和转化设计原则，指导小分子自组装成低聚物和聚合物形状填充两亲物，以形成稳健和功能性介观网络材料。自组装策略使自下而上设计的纳米结构材料具有定制的功能，访问形态和属性超过其组成的构建块。三维网络的互穿微域使得能够独立调节单一材料的正交特性。至关重要的是，网络通常形成的狭窄组合窗口目前限制了它们对应用程序的转换。该团队的方法集中在识别使层状和圆柱形形态不稳定的包装图案，以扩大负高斯曲率网络相的组成相窗口。通过薄膜和散装的先进工艺控制相选择和缺陷密度也是一个重要的额外目标。该奖项反映了NSF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 Description: This Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Minnesota features two Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs). The first team aims to access novel electronic and magnetic properties by direct application of strong local electric fields to promising new materials. This Quantum Leap aligned research will realize ready control over an extraordinary range of electronic phases and functions, thereby enabling new approaches to low-power magnetic data storage and processing, neuron-like computation, and nanophotonic devices such as solar cells. The second team is developing novel and systematic approaches to assembling polymeric materials into bicontinuous network structures with superior property combinations. These will advance multiple applications, including membranes for removal of viruses and bacteria, selective ion transport media for new battery designs, therapeutic delivery vehicles, and materials to manipulate light more efficiently in photovoltaic devices. The investigators provide extensive research experiences for promising undergraduates from a national network of four-year colleges, minority serving institutions, and especially tribal colleges. Summer camps for high school students, drawn from the Twin Cities and from Native American communities across the upper Midwest, involve senior investigators, students, and postdoctoral fellows in hands-on laboratory activities. Entertaining demonstration shows to illustrate fundamental scientific principles engage over 50,000 K-12 students each year. Close interaction with industry involves knowledge transfer in a pre-competitive collaboration with over 25 companies. Shared experimental facilities provide access to state-of-the-art materials characterization instrumentation to a national base of over 500 users.Technical Description: IRG-1 aims to transform the understanding of mechanisms, capabilities, and applications of electrolyte-based gating, thereby realizing electrical control over an extraordinary range of electronic phases and function. Both electrostatic and electrochemical control are central to elucidating the biggest challenges facing ionic gating, and thus the development of ionic devices. These include understanding: when and why electrostatics vs. electrochemistry dominate; limits on speed, reversibility, and property modulation; interfacial structure, chemistry, and ion-carrier interactions; and universality of the approach. Three target materials classes are envisioned to tackle these issues – metal oxides, metal chalcogenides, and molecular conductors – chosen for alignment with key open issues and extraordinary functionality. The overarching goal of IRG-2 is to identify and translate design principles that direct small molecule self-assembly to oligomeric and polymeric shape-filling amphiphiles to form robust and functional mesoscopic network materials. Self-assembly strategies enable bottom-up design of nanostructured materials with tailored functionalities, accessing morphologies and properties exceeding those of their constituent building blocks. The interpenetrating microdomains of three-dimensional networks enable independent tuning of orthogonal properties in a single material. Crucially, the narrow composition windows over which networks typically form currently restricts their translation to applications. The team’s approach centers on identifying packing motifs that destabilize lamellar and cylindrical morphologies to broaden the composition phase windows of negative Gaussian curvature network phases. Control of phase selection and defect density by advanced processing in films and in bulk is also an important additional target.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.