EAGER: Magnetic Interrogation Of Mesoscale Materials

非技术摘要该项目将资助三个当代领域的研究，为佛罗里达农工大学(FAMU)和国家强磁场实验室(NHMFL)之间的全面合作奠定基础，NHMFL是NSF的一个设施。HBCU是一所以教学为主的大学，FAMU的教职员工将与NHMFL的工作人员合作，研究新的催化剂、制备硬/软磁材料和纳米级蛋白质组件的新技术。这一合作活动将为FAMU的教职员工和学生提供重要的新的研究机会，并将在两所院校之间建立长期的关系。拟议的活动将加强现有物理学博士课程的活动，并将支持化学博士课程的发展。将开发的多学科计划将显著影响和加强物理、化学、生物和工程方面的研究，与NHMFL直接联系，并将加强国家STEM的工作力量。技术摘要拟议的研究将在当前感兴趣的三个领域开展活动。它们是：1)基于磁性分子的催化剂和催化剂组件。这项工作试图建立地球上丰富的高价金属物种实现水分裂的基本机制。它还将为解决高价中间体的性质/结构与其对水氧化的催化活性之间的关系提供至关重要的信息。这些研究对利用催化裂解水的可持续能源系统的发展具有潜在的影响。2)组装在聚合物超结构中的细观弹簧交换磁体的研究。这项工作将探索新的合成方法，通过自下而上形成介观结构来组装硬/软复合磁体，利用纳米加工故意形成可控的磁畴。拟议中的研究将产生新的材料，有可能大幅减少我们对进口稀土金属的依赖。3)纳米蛋白质和多肽组装体的研究。这些研究将从根本上理解多肽自组装的不同机制，以及这些机制是如何产生宏观性质(弹性模数、屈服应力)的。这将允许对最终属性的控制，并能够针对特定应用(用作细胞和组织支架)调整多肽属性。这些研究还将产生新的核磁共振技术，表征自组装机制，可用于研究各种其他材料的聚集和自组装。

Non-Technical AbstractThis project will funds studies in three contemporary areas that lay the foundation for a comprehensive collaboration between The Florida A & M University (FAMU) and The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), an NSF facility. Faculty at FAMU, an HBCU that is a predominantly teaching university, will collaborate with staff from the NHMFL to study new catalysts, new techniques for preparing hard/soft magnetic materials and nanoscale protein assemblies. This collaborative activity will provide important new research opportunities to faculty and students at FAMU and will seed a long term relationship between the institutions. The proposed activities will strengthen the activities in the existing doctoral program in Physics and will support the development of a doctoral program in Chemistry. The multidisciplinary program that will develop will significantly impact and enhance research in physics, chemistry, biology and engineering, with a direct link to the NHMFL and will strengthen the nations STEM workforce.Technical AbstractThe proposed studies will seed activity in three areas of current interest. These are:1) Catalyst and catalyst assemblies based on magnetic molecules. This work seeks to establish the fundamental mechanisms by which high-valent species of Earth-abundant metals achieve water splitting. It will also provide information of critical importance for addressing the correlation between the nature/structure of high-valent intermediates and their catalytic activity towards water oxidation. These studies have potential implications for the development of sustainable energy systems that take advantage of catalytic water splitting. 2) Studies of meso-scale spring-exchange magnets assembled in polymer superstructures. This work will explore new synthetic methods to assemble hard/soft composite magnets via bottom up formation of mesoscale structures to deliberately form controlled magnetic domains by utilization of nano-processing. The proposed research will result in novel materials that will have potential to substantially decrease our dependence on the imported rare-earth metals. 3) Studies of nanoscale protein and peptide assemblies. These studies will result in a fundamental understanding of the different mechanisms of self-assembly in peptides and how these mechanisms give rise to a resultant macroscopic property (elastic modulus, yield stress). This will allow control over the final property and be able to tune peptide properties towards a particular application (for use as cell and tissue scaffolds). These studies will also result in novel NMR techniques that characterize the self-assembly mechanisms which can be used to investigate aggregation and self-assembly in a wide variety of other materials.