Award Abstract # 2011839
MRSEC: Center for Nanoscale Science

NSF Org: DMR
Division Of Materials Research
Recipient: THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: June 29, 2020
Latest Amendment Date: March 13, 2025
Award Number: 2011839
Award Instrument: Cooperative Agreement
Program Manager: Serdar Ogut
sogut@nsf.gov
 (703)292-4429
DMR
 Division Of Materials Research
MPS
 Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Start Date: September 1, 2020
End Date: August 31, 2026 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $18,000,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $14,980,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2020 = $3,590,000.00
FY 2021 = $2,720,000.00

FY 2022 = $2,820,000.00

FY 2023 = $3,000,000.00

FY 2024 = $2,850,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Vincent Crespi (Principal Investigator)
  • Susan Sinnott (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Jon-Paul Maria (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Jun Zhu (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Joshua Robinson (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Lauren Zarzar (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Ismaila Dabo (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
201 OLD MAIN
UNIVERSITY PARK
PA  US  16802-1503
(814)865-1372
Sponsor Congressional District: 15
Primary Place of Performance: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
University Park
PA  US  16802-1503
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
15
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): NPM2J7MSCF61
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): MATERIALS RSCH SCI & ENG CENT
Primary Program Source: 01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 062Z, 9177, 094Z, 7237, 8614, 1711, 095Z, 9178, 9250, 054Z
Program Element Code(s): 173500
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.049

ABSTRACT

Nontechnical abstract:
The Penn State Materials Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) - Center for Nanoscale Science pursues new materials platforms, aspiring to deliver the materials of the future. Advancement of these platforms requires a cross-disciplinary Center-scale effort, one that fosters a widening gyre of innovation and discovery in emerging research areas of compelling opportunity. This MRSEC?s interdisciplinary research group (IRG) Two-Dimensional Polar Metals and Heterostructures studies ultrathin sheets of metals covered by an atomically thin sheet of carbon ? graphene ? which protects the metal from rusting. These structures provide a ground-breaking way to form combinations of materials whose individual quantum properties may come together to enable new materials for quantum computing as well as new sensor technologies. The IRG Crystalline Oxides with High Entropy also pioneers a new frontier of materials discovery, in this case crystalline materials composed of a multitude of chemical elements. Out of this huge compositional diversity it is possible to design materials with attributes that are valuable in energy or defense applications, such as transparent metals or materials capable of withstanding extreme environments. The Center?s multifaceted educational program introduces a core professional development theme of Sustainability in research practice and outcomes, expands educational offerings that increase access to STEM for disabled populations, and further deepens and expands two Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) through pervasive mentoring. In addition, knowledge transfer and the instilling of industry-valued leadership and team-building skills amongst Penn State MRSEC researchers at all levels amplify impact nationwide.

Technical abstract:
The air-stable two-dimensional metals studied by IRG1 are bonded covalently below and non-bonded above: such symmetry breaking activates novel electronic, spintronic, and optical phenomena such as strongly nonlinear optics, ultralow-background Raman enhancement, and the types of spin-dependent bandstructures critical to polar and topological superconductivity; these transformative properties promise impacts in biosensing, quantum heterostructures, and nonlinear metasurfaces. IRG2 seeks to define the crystal chemistry principles that guide data-informed material design in a high-configurational-entropy landscape, in which the rich diversity of crystal environments defines an ?entropy bank? from which a material can make ?withdrawals? to achieve ground-breaking properties not otherwise possible; these unique features anticipate broad impacts in ion conduction, transparent conductors, electrocaloric materials, and correlated oxides. Key equipment acquisitions expand access to specialized tools while systematic support for innovation and entrepreneurship across all career stages amplifies the impact of fundamental science innovation, all supported by targeted international research connections.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 147)
Almishal, Saeed_S I and Miao, Leixin and Tan, Yueze and Kotsonis, George N and Sivak, Jacob T and Alem, Nasim and Chen, LongQing and Crespi, Vincent H and Dabo, Ismaila and Rost, Christina M and Sinnott, Susan B and Maria, JonPaul "Order evolution from a highentropy matrix: Understanding and predicting paths to lowtemperature equilibrium" Journal of the American Ceramic Society , v.108 , 2025 https://doi.org/10.1111/jace.20223 Citation Details
Almishal, Saeed SI and Sivak, Jacob T and Kotsonis, George N and Tan, Yueze and Furst, Matthew and Srikanth, Dhiya and Crespi, Vincent H and Gopalan, Venkatraman and Heron, John T and Chen, Long-Qing and Rost, Christina M and Sinnott, Susan B and Maria, J "Untangling individual cation roles in rock salt high-entropy oxides" Acta Materialia , v.279 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2024.120289 Citation Details
Awate, Shubham Sukumar and Mostek, Brendan and Kumari, Shalini and Dong, Chengye and Robinson, Joshua A. and Xu, Ke and Fullerton-Shirey, Susan K. "Impact of Large Gate Voltages and Ultrathin Polymer Electrolytes on Carrier Density in Electric-Double-Layer-Gated Two-Dimensional Crystal Transistors" ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces , v.15 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.2c13140 Citation Details
Awate, Shubham Sukumar and Xu, Ke and Liang, Jierui and Katz, Benjamin and Muzzio, Ryan and Crespi, Vincent H. and Katoch, Jyoti and Fullerton-Shirey, Susan K. "Strain-Induced 2H to 1T Phase Transition in Suspended MoTe 2 Using Electric Double Layer Gating" ACS Nano , v.17 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.3c04701 Citation Details
Ayyagari, Sai_Venkata Gayathri and Miao, Leixin and Niculescu, Gabriela and Webb, Matthew and Barber, John and Heron, John and Rost, Christina M and Alem, Nasim "Investigation of the Influence of Growth Conditions on the Local Structure in High Entropy Oxides Using S/TEM" Microscopy and Microanalysis , v.30 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1093/mam/ozae044.663 Citation Details
Bachu, Saiphaneendra and Kowalik, Malgorzata and Huet, Benjamin and Nayir, Nadire and Dwivedi, Swarit and Hickey, Danielle Reifsnyder and Qian, Chenhao and Snyder, David W. and Rotkin, Slava V. and Redwing, Joan M. and van Duin, Adri C. and Alem, Nasim "Role of Bilayer Graphene Microstructure on the Nucleation of WSe 2 Overlayers" ACS Nano , v.17 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c12621 Citation Details
Balog, Andrew R and Lee, Channyung and Duarte-Ruiz, Daniel and Gayathri_Ayyagari, Sai Venkata and Jesenovec, Jani and Chmielewski, Adrian E and Miao, Leixin and Dutton, Benjamin L and McCloy, John and Cocchi, Caterina and Ertekin, Elif and Alem, Nasim "Determination of the to Phase Transformation Mechanism in Sc- and Al-Alloyed -Ga 2 O 3 Crystals" ACS Applied Electronic Materials , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.4c00762 Citation Details
Brahlek, Matthew and Gazda, Maria and Keppens, Veerle and Mazza, Alessandro R. and McCormack, Scott J. and Mielewczyk-Gry, Aleksandra and Musico, Brianna and Page, Katharine and Rost, Christina M. and Sinnott, Susan B. and Toher, Cormac and Ward, Thomas "What is in a name: Defining high entropy oxides" APL Materials , v.10 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0122727 Citation Details
Caucci, Mary Kathleen and Sivak, Jacob T and Almishal, Saeed SI and Rost, Christina M and Dabo, Ismaila and Maria, Jon-Paul and Sinnott, Susan B "Performance of exchange-correlation approximations to density functional theory for rare-earth oxides" Computational Materials Science , v.253 , 2025 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2025.113837 Citation Details
Chae, Sieun and Williams, Logan and Lee, Jihang and Heron, John T. and Kioupakis, Emmanouil "Effects of local compositional and structural disorder on vacancy formation in entropy-stabilized oxides from first-principles" npj Computational Materials , v.8 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-022-00780-0 Citation Details
Chae, Sieun and Yoo, Sangmin and Kioupakis, Emmanouil and Lu, Wei_D and Heron, John_T "Perspective: Entropy-stabilized oxide memristors" Applied Physics Letters , v.125 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0216429 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 147)

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