LEAPS-MPS: Conformational Inversion in Heterotriangulenes for Ferroelectric Switching

非技术性总结：新的数字信息的产生和对现有数字信息的访问对于社会的持续进步至关重要。云数据存储提供对数字信息的全球访问，并允许便携式设备生成无需本地存储的数据并与之交互;然而，云存储设施的负面影响包括能源效率低下、土地使用分配和资源管理。虽然全球信息共享是云存储策略的适当使用，但从根本上说，补偿有限的本地存储容量是一个挑战，可以通过增加数据存储材料的存储密度来解决。凭借这个LEAPS-MPS奖项，研究团队研究了一类用于非易失性数字信息存储的新型碳基分子材料，相对于传统的铁电技术和领先的存储电容器技术，该材料有可能将一位数据的大小减少几个数量级。铁电性是一种可以将信息存储在材料的电子极化矢量内的现象。这些材料的潜在用途将使一种技术能够通过将信息编码到单个分子的三维形状中来工作，该单个分子可以通过施加电场来进行修改。作为LEAPS-MPS项目的一部分，阿默斯特学院的本科生学习先进的材料合成和工程策略。此外，这项研究鼓励讨论的可持续性，公平性和可访问性的本地和远程数据存储结构，并激发了重新想象这些问题如何可能是addressed.Technical摘要：有机材料的实际信息存储应用的调查长期以来一直被排除在缺乏有机铁电系统，在室温或接近室温下工作。有机晶体中的铁电性通常由固态分子响应于所施加的电场而集体旋转和/或位移产生。然而，这种机制是敏感的晶体包装的细节，这还不能可靠地预测在硅片。该项目由LEAPS-MPS奖支持，旨在为一类新的有机铁电体开发基本的机械见解，该有机铁电体利用碗状杂原子中心的三角烯化合物（heterotriangulenes）的构象反转进行铁电开关。研究人员调查了固态铁电开关是否与分子构象反转的能量学密切相关，而不是与晶体堆积的不可预测的微妙性密切相关，随后通过分子设计原理研究了铁电性能的可调性。这项研究的结果为一类新的铁电体奠定了基础，这种铁电体有可能接近数据存储的单分子极限。这项研究是由一个多元化和跨学科的本科研究人员团队进行的，他们接受了有机和材料合成，X射线晶体学和设备制造方面的培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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 SUMMARY:The generation of new and access to existing digital information is critical to the continued advancement of society. Cloud data storage offers global access to digital information and allows portable devices to generate and interface with data that need not be stored locally; however, the negative impacts of Cloud storage facilities include energy inefficiency, land use allocation, and resource management. While global information sharing is an appropriate use of Cloud storage strategies, compensating for limited local storage capacity is, fundamentally, a challenge that can be addressed by increasing the storage density of data storage materials. With this LEAPS-MPS award, the research team investigates a new class of carbon-based molecular materials for non-volatile digital information storage with the potential to decrease the size of a bit of data by several orders of magnitude relative to traditional ferroelectric technologies and an order of magnitude relative to leading memory capacitor technologies. Ferroelectricity is a phenomenon by which information can be stored within the electronic polarization vector of a material. The potential use of this use of these materials would enable a technology that works by encoding information into the three-dimensional shape of a single molecule that can be modified with the application of an electric field. As part of this LEAPS-MPS project, undergraduate students at Amherst College learn advanced materials synthesis and engineering strategies. Additionally, this research encourages discussion of the sustainability, equity, and accessibility of local and remote data storage structures and inspires a reimagining of how these issues may be addressed.TECHNICAL SUMMARY:The investigation of organic materials for practical information storage applications has long been precluded by the lack of organic ferroelectric systems that operate at or near room temperature. Ferroelectricity in organic crystals generally arises from collective rotation and/or displacement of molecules in the solid-state in response to an applied electric field. However, such mechanisms are sensitive to the details of crystal packing, which cannot yet be reliably predicted in silico. This project, supported by a LEAPS-MPS award, seeks to develop fundamental mechanistic insight for a new class of organic ferroelectrics that take advantage of the conformational inversion of bowl-shaped heteroatom-centered triangulene compounds (heterotriangulenes) for ferroelectric switching. Researchers investigate whether ferroelectric switching in the solid state is strongly correlated with the energetics of molecular conformational inversion rather than unpredictable subtleties of crystal packing, and subsequently study the tunability of ferroelectric performance through molecular design principles. The results of this research establish the foundation for a new class of ferroelectrics with the potential to approach the single-molecule limit for data storage. This research is conducted by a diverse and cross-disciplinary team of undergraduate researchers who receive training in organic and materials syntheses, X-ray crystallography, and device fabrication.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.