This National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems award for $330,155 under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will enable William Marsh Rice University in Houston, TX to develop nanostructured topological insulators and Weyl semimetals as highly sensitive and low-noise platforms for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensing of biochemical molecules. The project aims to leverage the unique topologically-protected surface states of...
Rice University received a $165,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.049) to investigate strain and strain relaxation mechanisms in complex two-dimensional materials. Through this five-year award running from May 2023 to April 2028, Rice University will conduct research using scanning transmission electron microscopy techniques to map lattice strain and deformations in two-dimensional...
This $1,500,000 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Materials Research under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Program (CFDA 47.049) aims to accelerate the discovery and optimization of biosensor materials through a closed-loop computational and experimental approach. The key objectives are to: 1) understand the effect of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) functionalization and doping on nanoscale interactions with biomolecules, 2)...
The National Science Foundation (NSF), through its Engineering (ENG) program (CFDA 47.041), awarded a $442,649 Project Grant to William Marsh Rice University in Houston, Texas. The award period runs from August 15, 2023 to July 31, 2026. The grant supports research to develop and study electrically driven plasmonic light emitters that are strongly coupled to excitons and dielectric resonators. The goal is to create extremely small light-emitting devices with potential applications in...
This $330,000 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems and Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports collaborative research between Purdue University and the University of St. Thomas focused on investigating two-dimensional (2D) materials and developing photoswitchable interlayer exciton devices. Key activities include constructing 2D heterostructured hybrid devices from transition metal dichalcogenides and photochromic...
This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), provides $213,504 to develop new tools for nanoscale chemical and biochemical sensing and imaging. Professor Lane Baker at Texas A&M University will construct new instruments using advanced signal processing and selective chemical and biological sensors to measure very small concentrations of ions, molecules, and proteins at subcellular scales....
This five-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Materials Research, totaling $239,749, supports theoretical and computational research as well as educational efforts related to emerging layered materials. Specifically, the awardee, Stanford University, will utilize large-scale simulations and develop new methods to study the electronic and optical properties of vertically stacked two-dimensional materials with moiré patterns. This includes calculating effective...
William Marsh Rice University was awarded a $425,741 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems on February 15, 2021 to develop novel mammalian cell-based devices that sense and respond. The award has a completion date of January 31, 2024. The funding is provided through the NSF Directorate for Engineering's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), which seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength through...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a 3-year, $352,829 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) to conduct collaborative research on manipulating the thermal properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials through interface structure and chemistry. The key research objectives are to: Understand and control thermal boundary conductance at 2D-2D and 2D-bulk material interfaces by applying extreme pressure...
This $495,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports research at Rice University to investigate and control the properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes functionalized with guanine-linked DNA. Principal Investigator Robert Weisman and his team will conduct experiments and computations to further explore the nature and potential applications of these nanotube-DNA hybrid structures. Specifically, the work will deepen...
This National Science Foundation project grant of $392,541 awarded to Rice University on October 1, 2022 will support research into multiplexed and selective molecular sensing using two-dimensional materials through August 31, 2025. The award is part of NSF's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), which seeks to foster innovation in engineering research and education.
Specifically, the grant will fund the development of new fundamental understanding of Raman signal enhancement when organic analyte molecules are placed on two-dimensional material surfaces, a phenomenon known as Raman enhancement through two-dimensional materials (RE2D). The research aims to generate knowledge to guide the design of sensitive and highly multiplexed RE2D sensors exhibiting desirable properties such as molecular selectivity, signal reliability, and tunability. The grant also supports the integration of plasmonic structures with two-dimensional materials to achieve high sensor sensitivity. Outcomes will be incorporated into research-focused undergraduate courses on Raman-based nanosensors and two-dimensional optoelectronics.