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(IRGS)。第一个团队的目标是通过将强大的局部电场直接应用于有前景的新材料来获得新的电子和磁性特性。这项量子跃迁研究将实现对一系列非凡的电子相位和功能的现成控制，从而使低功率磁数据存储和处理、类神经元计算以及太阳能电池等纳米光子设备的新方法成为可能。第二个团队正在开发新颖和系统的方法，将聚合物材料组装成具有优越性能组合的双连续网络结构。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、治疗输送载体，以及在光伏设备中更有效地操纵光的材料。研究人员为来自全国四年制大学、少数族裔服务机构、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。高中生夏令营来自双子城和中西部北部的美洲原住民社区，高级调查人员、学生和博士后研究员参加动手实验室活动。每年有超过50,000名K-12学生参加说明基本科学原理的娱乐性演示节目。与行业的密切互动包括与超过25家公司在竞争前的协作中进行知识转移。共享的实验设备为500多名全国用户提供使用最先进的材料表征仪器的途径。技术描述：IRG-1旨在改变对基于电解液的门控的机理、能力和应用的理解，从而实现对一系列非凡的电子相位和功能的电子控制。静电和电化学控制都是阐明离子门控面临的最大挑战以及离子器件发展的核心。这些包括理解：何时以及为什么静电和电化学占主导地位；对速度、可逆性和性质调节的限制；界面结构、化学和离子-载体相互作用；以及该方法的普遍性。我们设想了三类目标材料来解决这些问题--金属氧化物、金属硫化物和分子导体--选择这些材料是为了与关键的开放问题和非凡的功能保持一致。IRG-2的首要目标是确定并转化设计原则，将小分子自组装引导到寡聚和聚合物形状填充的两亲分子，以形成坚固和功能的介观网络材料。自组装策略使具有定制功能的纳米结构材料能够自下而上地设计，获得超过其组成构件的形态和特性。三维网络中相互穿透的微域使单一材料中的正交性质能够独立调节。至关重要的是，网络通常形成的狭窄组成窗口目前限制了它们对应用的翻译。该团队的方法集中在识别破坏片层和柱状形态稳定的堆积基序，以拓宽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 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.