MRSEC Research at Penn
The Materials Research Science & Engineering Center (MRSEC)
at the University of Pennsylvania pursues a multidisciplinary approach
to solve fundamental materials problems that are likely to underlie
future technologies, and thereby, substantially impacts the research
and educational needs of society. The Laboratory for Research on
the Structure of Matter (LRSM) is the intellectual focal point
of materials research at PENN. It hosts the MRSEC, which consists
of five Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) plus selected
Seed projects. The MRSEC provides crucial support for faculty,
postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students drawn from different
disciplines, to tackle complex materials science projects that
can only be addressed in a truly collaborative mode. The broad
expertise, sophisticated equipment, plus the technical and administrative
infrastructure that exist in the LRSM enable these projects.
The LRSM plays a special role on the PENN campus: It facilitates
collaborations between faculty from different departments and schools
and promotes links to industrial partners and society at large.
The LRSM has experience in managing IRGs, nurturing seed projects
and acquiring, building and maintaining shared experimental facilities
(SEFs) for the benefit of the materials research community. LRSM
has moved aggressively in the area of human resources development
(HRD) by creating educational opportunities, particularly for high
school teachers, students, and under-represented groups. The MRSEC
exploits PENN’s strength in the design, synthesis, characterization,
theory and modeling of entirely new classes of materials.
 Filamentous Networks & Structured Gels
Senior Investigators: Shu Yang & Arjun G. Yodh
IRG Leaders; Christopher S. Chen, John C.Crocker, Paul A. Janmey, Tom C. Lubensky, Karen I. Winey
IRG-1 will draw on expertise from five departments & collaborate to explore & understand the properties of filamentous networks. The goal is to design & synthesize responsive network materials. The ultimate aim is to create a new class of materials & associated technologies by combining knowledge about filamentous networks with control of responsive gels or gel elements.
top  Functional Cylindrical Assemblies
Senior Investigators: Dennis E. Discher & Andrea Liu
IRG Leaders; Paul A. Heiney, Randall D. Kamien, Michael L. Klein, Virgil Percec, Shu Yang
IRG-2 will collaborate to synthesize semi-flexible, functional cylinders composed of dendrimer-based polymers & self-assembling block copolymers. The goal is to understand the interplay between soft structure & function and thereby develop cylinders whose meso-conformations can be controlled to generate mechanical motion and cylinders that can be arrayed as flow-responsive nano-reactors.
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 Designed Programmable Membranes
Senior Investigators: William F. DeGrado & Daniel A. Hammer
IRG Leaders; Feng Gai, Mark D. Goulian, Michael L. Klein, Virgil Percec
IRG-3 draws expertise from four departments to design fully integrated functional analogues of cellular membranes. The goal is highly stable membranes with integrated functional components including, ion channels, receptors, & signal transducers. Employing the tools of molecular nanotechnology, the IRG will support both biological & bio-inspired synthetic approaches to these problems.
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 De Novo Synthetic Protein Modules for Light-Capture and Catalysis
Senior Investigators: J. Kent Blasie & P. Leslie Dutton
IRG co-leaders; William F. DeGrado, Bohdana M. Discher, Jeffrey G. Saven, Michael J. Therien, & A. Joshua Wand
IRG-4 draws on the rich biological resource of atomic-level
structures & functional mechanisms to guide design & synthesis of novel proteins as modular nano-scale materials. These adaptable self-assembling modules will be constructed to couple light-energy to conservative oxidative & reductive catalysis. These modular designed proteins have no peers in material science.
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 Oxide-Based Hierarchical Interfacial Materials
Senior Investigators: J. M. Kikkawa & I.-W. Chen
IRG Leaders; D. A. Bonnell, P. K. Davies, A. M. Rappe, J. M. Vohs
IRG-5 focuses on creating & understanding novel hierarchical interfacial oxide materials. By juxtaposing oxides at various length scales, responsive instabilities appear at their interfaces & give rise to new functionality. This team has expertise in theory, synthesis, & experiment, tailored to studying these instabilities. Quantitative schemes for modeling ferroelectrics (pioneered in the IRG), predict exciting effects between atomic layers of magnetoresistive & ferroelectric oxides and possible oxide applications to microfluidics.
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Seed Projects
* Partial MRSEC support
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