This proposal will be awarded using funds made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), and meets the requirements established in Section 2 of the White House Memorandum entitled, Ensuring Responsible Spending of Recovery Act Funds, dated March 20, 2009. I also affirm, as the cognizant Program Officer, that the proposal does not support projects described in Section 1604 of Division A of the Recovery Act.
Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI)
Proposal Numbers: 0941538 / 0941312 PIs: Hyunmin Yi / Erik Demaine Institution: Tufts University / Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title: CDI Type I: Geometric Algorithms for Staged Nanomanufacturing?
Efficient nanomanufacturing of arbitrary structures is a major scientific challenge and a mjor technological opportunity. This concept of this proposal is that computational thinking will bootstrap any technology for constructing basic building blocks and glues into a general methodology for manufacturing arbitrary structures. A host of such results has the potential to revolutionize the field of nanomanufacturing and bring the societal benefits much closer to feasibility.
The project approach is to understand the extent to which high-level algorithmic control, combined with nano self-assembly as the low-level machine, can be used to manufacture arbitrary two- and three-dimensional structures with desired interfaces using very few types of glues and basic units. The theoretical approach is to begin with mathematical models of the assembly process from basic units, small rigid units (rods, squares, cubes, etc.) with glues (binding sites) of different types at specific locations, proceeding to view the sequence of steps by which these units are created, mixed in a solution, and filtered as a geometric algorithm in a novel computational model. The modeling component will develop novel models for viewing nanomanufacturing as a sequential or parallel computation system, where computational steps are either precisely controlled physical manipulations or self-assembly procedures. The primary computational novelty is to consider both of these aspects in one cohesive model, while the chemical innovation is the control and manipulation of viral nanobuilding blocks for higher-order architecture construction. For comparison, complex, large-scale architectures will be assembled by DNA hybridization using building blocks of tobacco mosaic virus, analogous to the theoretical approach. The unique combination of nanobiofabrication and two computational models - sequential and parallel algorithms with self-assembly manufacturing is intended to enable more efficient solutions to general nanomanufacturing.
In additional to the technological benefits, the project will also train graduate and undergraduate students to take practical challenges outside computer science and develop mathematical and computational perspectives into the problems, a cornerstone for the success of computational thinking. The proposed research will also be widely disseminated through course and lecture exchanges, visual art projects, and outreach activities.
