2017 Seed funding RFP Released

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We are pleased to announce the 2017 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program Request for Proposals (RFP), which is open to The Ohio State University (OSU) materials community.  This enhanced seed program leverages resources and best practices of the Center for Emergent Materials (CEM), the Center for Exploration of Novel Complex Materials (ENCOMM), and the Institute for Materials Research (IMR).  The result is a unified RFP with Funding Tiers designed to achieve the greatest impact for seeding excellence in materials research of varying scopes, and with the goal of generating new directions that extend beyond the boundaries of existing research programs.

2017 Materials Research Seed Grant Program RFP

additional Seed Program details

Ohio State Recognized as Midwestern Hub of Next-Gen Magnetic Resonance Research

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Ohio State: Midwestern Hub of Next-Gen Magnetic Resonance Research | Electrical and Computer Engineering

September 13, 2016

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Magnetic resonance is one of the most important phenomena in materials and medical research. Its broad range of applications has revolutionized modern technologies, from wireless communication to radar, while saving millions of lives in the medical realms through the early detection of disease.

A team of physicists and engineers at The Ohio State University has now won a $1.071 million award from the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation program (NSF-MRI) to help advance the study of magnetic resonance technology at the nanoscale level. Over the next three years, they will work to develop and build new equipment capable of discovering novel magnetic resonance phenomena at a very high frequency range up to 330 Ghz. The Institute for Materials Research (IMR) at Ohio State coordinated the group effort that ultimately led to the winning NSF-MRI award.

Department of Physics Professor and IMR Associate Director Fengyuan Yang, Principal Investigator (PI) on the project, said the technology they are developing could make Ohio State a center for high-frequency magnetic resonance research across the Midwest. Once constructed, the new instrument will be located inside the university’s NanoSystems Laboratory, a facility open to all academic and industrial users.

“This will be the first magnetic resonance spectrometer within this frequency range at a shared user facility in the Midwest,” Yang said, “and it will significantly strengthen and expand the investigation of novel fundamental phenomena and the development of paradigm-changing technologies for researchers at Ohio State and from across the region.”

The NSF-MRI project team includes Yang, with co-investigators P. Chris Hammel, professor of Physics; John Volakis, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE); Joseph Heremans, professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Physics; Rolando Valdes Aguilar, assistant professor of Physics; Zeke Johnston-Halperin, associate professor of Physics; and Denis Pelekhov, director of the NanoSystems Laboratory.

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Campus Recruiting Relevant to CEM Students

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The following campus recruiting events have been curated for CEM affiliates seeking STEM careers. Information is subject to change; please confirm  with original source.

 

Researchers Discover New Electronic Phase of Matter: Topological Weyl Semimetal

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IRG-1 Researchers Professor Nandini Trivedi and her graduate student Tim McCormick, in collaboration with Professor Adam Kaminski (Iowa State University) and Dr. Jiaqiang Yan (ORNL) and their students, discovered a new electronic phase of matter known as a topological Weyl semimetal.  This novel quantum phase hosts excitations known as Weyl fermions, first predicted in high energy physics in 1929 but only recently experimentally discovered in quantum materials.  Using theoretical modeling and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, the team identified the first type-II Weyl semimetal phase in the layered transition metal compound MoTe2.  Type-II Weyl fermions break Lorentz invariance, a symmetry obeyed by all fundamental particles, so Weyl semimetals hosting these excitations allow for the testing of exotic physics beyond the standard model in a tabletop experiment.  They possess electron and hole pockets that touch at topologically protected points in momentum space and form Fermi arcs and newly predicted track states on the surface that result in unique magneto-transport properties of these materials.  Additionally, the Weyl excitations are robust against external perturbations, providing a resilient platform for possible information storage as well as opening the door for electronic applications. Read the new publication in Nature Materials.

2016 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Awards Announced

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We are pleased to announce that after a thorough internal and external review process, 11 awards have been made to fund exceptionally promising, innovative materials research on campus through the 2016 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program.  These awards total $500,000 in internal research funding to 25 Ohio State researchers from 10 departments in five colleges.  The program was able to fund 58% of the proposals submitted this year; 11 out of a total 19.  Congratulations to the eleven research teams whose projects were selected this year for seed grant funding.

The 2016 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program provides internal research funding opportunities through two distinct Funding Tiers designed to achieve the greatest impact for seeding and advancing excellence in materials research of varying scopes.

The OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program is jointly funded and managed by the Center for Emergent Materials (CEM), the Center for Exploration of Novel Complex Materials (ENCOMM), and the Institute for Materials Research (IMR).

2016 Exploratory Materials Research Grants

Exploratory Materials Research Grants enable nascent and innovative materials research to emerge to the point of being competitive for external funding.  Eight Exploratory Materials Research Grants were awarded this year:

  • Direct Structural Determination of Individual DNA Molecules Using Electron Nanodiffraction, PI: Jinwoo Hwang, Materials Science and Engineering; Co-Investigator: Kichoon Lee, Animal Sciences
  • Molecular Beam Epitaxy Growth of 2D Ferromagnetic Semiconductors, PI: Roberto Myers, Materials Science and Engineering; Co-Investigators: Roland Kawakami, Physics; Wolfgang Windl, Materials Science and Engineering
  • An Integrated Experimental-Computational Approach for Determining the Phonon Mean Free Path Spectrum in Semiconductors, PI: Sandip Mazumder, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Co-Investigator: Marat Khafizov, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Effects of Polymer Adsorption on Dynamics of Model Polymer Nanocomposites for Design of Advanced Tire Tread Compounds, PI: Kurt Koelling, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Co-Investigator: Lisa Hall, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
  • Uncertainty Quantification for Model Selection: Evaluating Material Constitutive Models based on Available Data, PI: Stephen Niezgoda, Materials Science and Engineering; Co-Investigator: Oksana Chkrebtii, Statistics
  • Development of a Nanoscale Rheology Sensor in a Microphysiological Model of Tumor Stroma, PI: Jonathan Song, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Co-Investigators: Carlos Castro, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Michael Ostrowski, Cancer Biology and Genetics
  • Synthesis and Design of Novel Graphyne and Graphdiyne-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks, PI: Psaras McGrier, Chemistry and Biochemistry
  • The Effect of Abutment Material on Wear of Internal Engaging Features of Implants under Cyclic Loading, PI: Fengyuan Zheng, Restorative Sciences and Prosthodontics; Co-Investigators: Damian Lee, Restorative Sciences and Prosthodontics; Jinwoo Hwang, Materials Science and Engineering

2016 Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants

Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants form multidisciplinary materials research teams that can compete effectively for federal block-funding opportunities.  Three Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants were awarded this year:

  • Ultra Wide Band Gap III-Nitride Semiconductor Materials and Devices, PI: Siddharth Rajan, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Co-Investigators: Jinwoo Hwang, Materials Science and Engineering; Aaron Arehart, Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Magnetic Dynamics and Excitations in Skyrmions Stabilized by Thin Films and Multilayers, PI: Chris Hammel, Physics; Co-Investigators: Vidya Bhallamudi and Fengyuan Yang, Physics; David McComb, Materials Science and Engineering
  • Halide Double Perovskites: A New Class of Lead-free Compound Semiconductors, PI: Patrick Woodward, Chemistry and Biochemistry; Co-Investigators: Joseph Heremans, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Roberto Myers and Wolfgang Windl, Materials Science and Engineering

Full abstracts are available in this PDF.