Block copolymers and Ionic Liquids for Data Storage (BILDS)

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This carefully designed training program will transform a talented Fellow, Dr Amit Kumar Sarkar, and provide him the perfect platformto become an independent researcher to develop impactful research to address real world issues. In the digital world that we nowlive, we are creating more and more data exponentially - we are simply running out of storage space. To tackle this challenge, BILDSwill develop an innovative, affordable, and industrially relevant next-generation material technology for data storage applications.Block copolymer-ionic liquid (BCP-IL) composite materials with extremely small (sub-5 nm) domains will be developed for use innanolithography techniques used to fabricate efficient data storage devices with high data storage density (areal density) for existinglarge-scale data centers, thus significantly reducing the need to construct new large-scale facilities. A custom-made rig will beconstructed to facilitate sophisticated in situ grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) experiments to uncover robustdesign rules for the formation of these new materials - a significant technical advancement that will enable a more seamlesstransition to industry. The specific research objectives (ROs) are: RO1- Training of the Fellow and two-way knowledge transferbetween the Fellow and each Host; RO2 - Synthesis, characterization, and phase separation behavior of novel, industrially relevantBCP-IL pairings; RO3 - Fabricate BCP-IL materials with enhanced nanoscale resolution (sub-5nm) for nanopatterning technology;RO4 - Construct new rig for in situ GISAXS studies to elucidate optimal conditions for nanopatterning. The BILDS consortium ismultidisciplinary & intersectoral, scrupulously assembled to achieve these ambitious ROs: academic hosts from Aston University (UK),Babes-Bolyai University (Romania) and Diamond Light Source (UK), plus industrial advisors from BASF (Germany) and SpecialistComputer Centers (SCC).