****Nontechnical abstract**** The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Chicago supports innovative research to produce the design principles for the next generation of materials. The research is focused on investigating materials formed far from equilibrium, exploring new paradigms for material fabrication and response, and exploiting feedback between structure and dynamics. Senior investigators come from eleven University Departments and Institutes, as well as neighboring Argonne National Laboratory and PREM partner, the City College of New York. The Center's shared facilities provide vital support for its research and further support the broader materials research community by granting access to external users. The Center's collaborations with industry, national laboratories and international partners serve to engage those entities in research with the Center, and expand opportunities for MRSEC students. The Management Laboratory, run with the Chicago Booth School of Business, and industrial internships provide professional development opportunities for MRSEC students. In addition to training a diverse group of students, the Chicago MRSEC brings science inquiry experiences to underserved students in neighboring communities on Chicago's South Side including programs for students and teachers and after-school Science Clubs. The MRSEC provides summer research opportunities to undergraduates from all over the US and high school students from the South Side of Chicago. As part of its outreach to the general public, the MRSEC collaborates with Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and the Exploratorium in San Francisco to develop materials science exhibits. The MRSEC is committed to increasing the Center diversity as reflected in the significant participation by women in the Center's investigators and leadership.
Research is organized in three Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs): (i) The IRG on Dynamics at Soft Interfaces focus on both scientific challenges and technological opportunities that arise from controlling and manipulating how much or how fast a soft interface forms or deforms. The research endeavors to establish the link between the interface dynamics and the properties of the material as a whole, which opens up opportunities for designing specific material responses and provides a pathway towards innovative applications. (ii) The IRG on Spatiotemporal Control of Active Materials aims to understand, design, and synthesize materials containing distributed molecular elements that convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Its goal is to achieve control of active materials and ultimately to create novel molecular assemblies for robust tunable shape change. (iii) The IRG on Engineering Quantum Materials and Interactions seeks to elucidate the critical issues of control and coherence in both individual and in collective-mode quantum systems, with the intention of manipulating and exploiting quantum coherence in materials over a large range of length scales. Goals include advancing applications in quantum sensing, fabricating materials for quantum information as well as creating the next generation of characterization tools for traditional materials.
The Management Laboratory, run with the Chicago Booth School of Business, and industrial internships provide professional development opportunities for MRSEC students. In addition to training a diverse group of students, the Chicago MRSEC brings science inquiry experiences to underserved students in neighboring communities on Chicago's South Side including programs for students and teachers and after-school Science Clubs. The MRSEC provides summer research opportunities to undergraduates from all over the US and high school students from the South Side of Chicago. As part of its outreach to the general public, the MRSEC collaborates with Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and the Exploratorium in San Francisco to develop materials science exhibits. The MRSEC is committed to increasing the Center diversity as reflected in the significant participation by women in the Center's investigators and leadership.
