Materials science gets $20 million from government

The grant is the largest that the PCCM has received since its opening in 1994. The University’s application was one of 14 chosen from among 100 proposals sent to the NSF.

The NSF funds Materials Research and Science Engineering Centers (MRSECs) to promote materials science research through interdisciplinary efforts. There are more than 30 centers nationwide, including seven at Ivy League universities. Every six years, MRSECs can apply for a renewal of their grant funding. This year, 13 MRSECs applied for renewal but only nine received grants. Five new centers were also established this year.

The MRSECs vary in size according to the research capabilities of their host institution, consisting of between one and five interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs).

“All of [the IRGs] have, as a focus, fundamental science,” PCCM director Richard Register said. “Some of them play into technology or future technology as well.”

The grant will allow the PCCM to fund a new IRG, giving PCCM four total. This group will work to develop organic electronic technology and will be co-directed by chemical engineering professor Lynn Loo GS ’01 and electrical engineering professor Antoine Kahn GS ’75.

The IRG is trying to understand what role interfaces play in these devices. “They are a complex architecture of many different layers. ... We are examining charge transport between these layers,” Loo explained.

The new group is working on two aspects of organic electronics: transistors and solar cells. Transistors are the basic building structures of electronic circuitry and, through organic electronics, can be applied to the production of electronic paper and wallpaper.

One main advantage of using organic materials in circuitry is that they are much cheaper and easier to produce than the inorganic compounds traditionally used in circuitry.

For example, inorganic compounds, such as metals, require heating at much higher temperatures during production than organic compounds.

“We can also subsequently derivitize them and add functional groups, which is difficult to do with inorganics,” Loo explained. “This allows us to easily tune the devices’ properties.”

Organic materials are also lightweight, portable and flexible, making them durable.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Of the existing IRGs at Princeton, one investigates the magnetism and flow of electrons through a class of materials with atypical magnetic states. In these substances, electrons behave like other subatomic particles, such as photons. This research has applications in thermoelectrics, the regulation of temperature with electric currents. For example, this type of research could produce refrigerators with no moving parts.

“The ability to keep electronic and computer equipment moderately cool, around the temperature of dry ice, would be an important advance in computing,” Register noted.

A second research group, which Register co-directs, is working to develop improved techniques for producing nanostructures.

Nanostructures, molecular constructs that are particularly challenging to produce because of their extremely small size. The IRG is developing techniques to induce these structures to construct themselves by guiding the movements of simple compounds.

A third IRG seeks to better understand magnetic and electric properties of nanostructures, which will have implications for quantum computing.

The PCCM has many programs other than research, including K-12 educational outreach and a summer program also open to students from other universities.