Project Grant 1344069

This three-year, $1,031,012 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Chicago to develop active adaptive materials inspired by cell mechanics. The goal is to elucidate design principles for soft biomolecular materials whose actuation and shape are reprogrammable, similar to how actin cytoskeleton networks control cell shape and locomotion. Researchers will reconstitute cytoskeleton-like composite networks in vitro and optimize molecular engineering...

This $390,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports the development of novel biophotonic computing devices through the Engineering Directorate's 47.041 Engineering program. Specifically, the principal investigator aims to create a flexible, sustainable platform for bio-photonic thin film transistors using cellulose-nanocrystals with chiral nematic organization and responsive photonic behavior. Over the two-year period from September 15, 2022 to August 31, 2025, the grantee,...

This $200,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) award under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports a collaborative research project led by the University of California, Berkeley to develop and harness quasi-one-dimensional topological materials for novel electronic, optoelectronic, and sensing functionalities. The project aims to overcome current limitations of topological insulators by focusing on quasi-1D materials, which have the potential to enable new...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems awarded a $450,000 Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to research and develop switchable persistent spin helix devices. The goal is to overcome key challenges in spintronic devices, which use electron spin rather than charge to carry information, by leveraging materials with strong spin-orbit coupling and electric-field tunable persistent...

The National Science Foundation is providing a $299,837 RII TRACK-4 project grant to Brown University under the NSF Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) program. The goal of this 2-year project is to experimentally synthesize and characterize a new class of ferroelectric Rashba semiconductor materials that can efficiently control and manipulate electron spins for low-power spintronic computing applications. The researchers will utilize Cornell University's state-of-the-art thin film synthesis...

This $264,338 National Science Foundation Project Grant through the Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) will fund research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham to develop neuromorphic computing technologies using spin-orbitronic properties in quantum materials. The two-year project beginning in February 2023 aims to utilize spin-orbit coupling effects in emerging materials like two-dimensional and topological materials to emulate artificial synapses and neurons with nonvolatile,...

This NSF Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) Project Grant award of $300,000 to Brown University will support a research infrastructure improvement project focused on developing an experimental method to directly probe the configuration of electron spins in 2D materials like multilayer graphene. The key objectives are to: 1) establish a user program located in Rhode Island to provide research and intern opportunities for students, thereby training the state's quantum workforce, and 2)...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $1,350,000 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Office of Research. The award period runs from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2027. The project aims to develop "synthetic life-like materials and machines" by using light-responsive active fluids to control the dynamics and motions of rigid and deformable interfaces and inclusions. Key...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $563,690 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska for the project "HETEROMOLECULAR INTERFACE DESIGN FOR BETTER MULTIFERROIC MOLECULAR SPINTRONICS". The goal of this research is to develop a highly stable, energy-efficient molecular-based memory device that can potentially address the growing need for computer memory while reducing energy...

This EAGER (Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research) award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will develop generative artificial intelligence (AI) methods to learn from computational physics simulations and mathematical equations. The $300,000 project aims to expand the capabilities of large language models, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot, to go beyond text-based learning and make predictions on complex, coupled physics problems...