Project Grant FA86552417043

This $450,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Materials Research, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), supports the development of new composite materials with applications in optical devices. Professor Rob Macfarlane and his research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will synthesize polymer-grafted nanoparticles containing large volumes of high refractive index nanoparticles embedded in a mechanically robust...

The National Science Foundation Division of Materials Research awarded $320,000 under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a collaborative research project on combinatorial solution processing of optical phase change materials. The researchers will develop a high-throughput synthesis and characterization paradigm for accelerated discovery and customization of multi-component phase change alloy thin films tailored for...

This three-year project grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) provides $485,000 to Penn State University to develop new nonlinear optical single crystal materials and an open-source modeling package for classical and quantum light generation applications. Specifically, the University will synthesize and characterize promising new nonlinear optical single crystals identified through theoretical modeling and literature reviews. An...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Materials Research provides $320,000 to support collaborative research on combinatorial solution processing of optical phase change materials at the University of Central Florida and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology through August 2026. The award aims to develop a high-throughput synthesis and characterization approach for discovering and optimizing new multi-component phase change alloy compositions tailored for...

This $550,000 National Science Foundation project grant will support the development of novel synthetic approaches for manufacturing optical polymers at the University of Arizona from June 2022 to May 2025. Funded through NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program, principal investigators Jeffrey Pyun and Robert Norwood will investigate a new step-growth polymerization process using sulfenyl chlorides to electrophilically add to olefinic monomers. Their research aims to address the high...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $200,609 to Texas Tech University System to conduct collaborative research on additive manufacturing of optical hybrid materials (OHM). The key objectives are to understand how compositional doping influences OHM hybrid structures and develop a spatially resolved optical analysis system to identify the critical factors affecting these materials under extreme gradients. The successful...

This Project Grant award, valued at $500,000.00 and provided by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), supports research led by the University of Maryland, College Park to explore a new class of low-loss phase change materials (PCMs) that can actively control light propagation within photonic integrated circuits. The central goal is to leverage PCMs to dynamically reconfigure the connectivity between transverse spatial modes within multimode waveguides,...

This $524,480 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research at New York University (NYU) on developing novel semiconductor crystal materials and manufacturing processes for advanced optoelectronic applications. The key focus is on understanding how to fabricate "twisted" organic semiconductor crystals that can spontaneously form into aligned networks, enabling them to outperform single crystal materials in properties like...

This National Science Foundation (CFDA 47.041 - Engineering) Project Grant award of $313,716 supports fundamental research by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (Tees) to develop advanced optical hybrid materials (OHM) through combinatorial printing techniques. The goal is to understand how compositional doping influences OHM hybrid structures and establish a spatially resolved optical analysis system to identify key factors affecting these materials under extreme gradients. The...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) Project Grant award of $299,838 to the University of New Mexico (UNM) is funding research to investigate stress-induced birefringence and refractive index changes in glass materials. The goal is to advance the capability of ultrafast laser micromachining techniques to reliably alter material properties and create sub-micron features in glass for fabricating novel optical components like waveguides, waveplates, and...