Seed Projects:

The Design, Syntheses and Properties of Chemical Precursors to Advanced Nonoxide Ceramics

Larry G. Sneddon, Donald Berry

Research Objectives: Develop new methods that enable the production of structural and electronic nonoxide ceramics, including SiC, B₄C, Si₃N₄, BN and metal-borides, in usable forms such as films, fibers and matrix materials with control of structure, order and porosity. Develop methods for the formation of nanostructured ceramics, including nanofibers, nanocylinders and nanoporous materials.

 

Synthetic Protein Self Assembly & Foldling

Jeffery Saven, Feng Gai, Eric Boder

Goals of this project include the development of methodologies for the computational design, discovery, and characterization of materials comprising structured proteins using high throughput methods. Structured monomeric and self-associating proteins may be identified that accommodate cofactors conferring novel optical and electron-transfer properties and that self-associate in a predetermined fashion to form ordered films and three-dimensional matrices.

 

Complex Archietctures via Living Polymerizations

Virgil Percec, Owen Webster

New metal-free living radical polymerization methods will be elaborated. Established and newly developed methods in the synthesis of polymers with complex architecture will be utilized to design and produce molecules for the physics problems investigated in several of the IRGs.