NU-MRSEC supports innovative, high-risk seed projects that extend beyond the socpe of the IRG research. Seed funding is designed to be short-term, thus allowing investigators to procure sufficient preliminary results to attract long-term funding either within the MRSEC (e.g., joining a pre-existing IRG or nucleating a new IRG) or from other external funding sources.
Seed 1: Thermoplastic Bio-Copolymers for Biodegradable and Recyclable Packaging
Cecile Chazot, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
We currently lack approaches to scalably and controllably syn-thetize thermoplastics that combine the processability and recyclability of state-of-the-art syn-thetic polymers, with the thermal stability and biodegradability of biopolymers. The long-term research goal is to design a new class of recyclable and biodegradable copolymers based on synthetic polyester and bio-mass polymers, called thermoplastic bio-copolymers (TBio copolymers), and asso-ciated manufacturing pathways to establish structure-property-processing relationships linking macro-molecular chemistry, mechanical/barrier properties, and thermal processing history. Towards this goal, this seed proposal aims to develop TBio graft copolymers of PLA and chitosan that can be thermally processed into recyclable and biodegradable films with tailored mechanical and barrier properties.
Seed 2: Fatigue and Fracture of Protein Composite Hydrogels
Junsoo Kim, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Artificial biosystems are housed in an extracellular matrix, a protein hydrogel. The mechanical properties of artificial biosystems rely on the protein hydrogel. To provide sufficient durability, the protein hydrogel is required to have a high modulus to resist excessive swelling, high toughness to resist crack growth under monotonic load, and high fatigue threshold to resist crack growth under cyclic load. Although the toughness has been improved by adding sacrificial bonds into the polymer network, such effects disappear under cyclic load. For example, forming a double network increases its toughness by one to two orders of magnitude, but its fatigue threshold, reinforced or not, has remained the same. Also, the sacrificial bonds make hydrogels inelastic, causing a high hysteresis in stress-stretch curves, residual stretch, and delayed relaxation. Such inelastic behaviors are often not preferred in systems requiring consistent mechanical properties. Moreover, fatigue resistance has been barely studied in protein hydrogels. In this Seed project, we investigage how protein hydrogels can be greatly reinforced by compositing different natural proteins. We aim to develop fabrication processes that can highly entangle and crosslink long proteins. The dense entanglements will provide high swell-resistance despite the long length of proteins. We will investigate various natural proteins and conditions so that the hard-phase can be formed or dissolved on demand.
Seed 3: Understanding the Ultrafast Dynamic Molecular Correlations of Ionic-Electronic Conductors
James Gaynor, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
A major challenge in developing neuromorphic materials is to engineer fast, scalable, and stable memory units that mimic biological neural activities like synaptic firing, neural spiking, and memory storage. These events must also occur in massively parallelized fashion as performed by the brain. Developing neuromorphic devices and device architectures requires a foundational understanding of the nature and timescales of a heterogeneous distribution of intermolecular interactions that create the fundamental signaling unit. This Seed project aims to create a state-of-the-art understanding of the ultrafast intermolecular dynamics of emerging neuromorphic materials like mixed ionic-electronic conductors of organic molecules and 2D materials.
Seed 4: Towards Intelligent Optical Matter Through Engineered Photorefraction
David Barton, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
The basis of electronic materials and devices relies on doping charge carriers into relevant materials and using electric fields to modify electronic properties. Combined with emerging material systems, programmable, nonvolatile, and reconfigurable devices can be envisioned where an electric field can set the state of a component for neuromorphic computing and other applications. Realizing this vision requires engineering light-matter interactions where light is coupled to the electronic, ionic, or mechanical properties of a material. With appropriate materials design, processing, and control, optical materials can be created with feedback mechanisms that produce memories and trainability. Photorefraction in the wide bandgap thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) is a promising first step toward this.
Seed 5: Understanding the Coupling of Thermodynamic Forces During High-Temperature Oxidation of Metals
Ian McCue, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Fadi Abdeljawad, Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
James Rondinelli, Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
The objective of this seedling is to understand the fundamental linkages between electrical and chemical driving forces during high-temperature oxidation. Structural materials for aerospace are often required to operate at high temperatures where oxidation resistance is paramount. However, degradation is treated as an inevitability, and researchers have been confined to tuning composition to reduce a given material’s oxidation rate. Here, we seek to break from this design paradigm and posit that electric fields can alter the thermodynamic stability of phases in high-temperature gaseous environments. More specifically, we hypothesize that electromotive force can be used to control oxide growth kinetics on a metal’s surface.
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