This document has been archived Title : NSF 95-140 (AMPP) Report of NSF Panel on Areas of Opportunity Type : Report NSF Org: MPS / DMR Date : September 20, 1995 File : nsf95140 *************************************************************** Note: A MS Word for Windows 6.0 version is available as filename nsf95140.doc ****************************************************************** ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSING PROGRAM (AMPP) Report of NSF Panel on Areas of Opportunity January 12, 1995 The Foundation provides awards for research in the sciences and engineering. The awardee is wholly responsible for the conduct of such research and preparation of the results for publication. The Foundation therefore, does not assume responsibility for the research findings or their interpretation. The Foundation welcomes proposals from all qualified scientists and engineers and strongly encourages women, minorities, and persons with disabilities to compete fully in any of the research and related programs described here. In accordance with federal statutes. regulations, and NSF policies, no person on grounds of race, color, age, sex, national origin, or disability shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving financial assistance from the National Science Foundation. Facilitation Awards for Scientists and Engineers with Disabilities (FASED) provide funding for special assistance or equipment to enable persons with disabilities (investigators and other staff, including student research assistants) to work on NSF projects. See the program announcement or contact the program coordinator at (703) 306-1636. The National Science Foundation has TDD (Telephonic Device for the Deaf) capability, which enables individuals with hearing impairment to communicate with the Foundation about NSF programs, employment, or general information. This number is (703) 306- 0090. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: 47.049 Preface In response to a Congressional request for information on the National Science Foundation's plans for fundamental research and education in areas benefiting national needs, the Foundation convened a panel of experts from the advanced materials and processing communities to identify research opportunities in the materials area. The panel conducted a workshop on January 12, 1995. Since we feel that it is important to share the results of the workshop widely with those who are engaged in materials research and education as well as with others who have an interest in this field, NSF decided to publish the panel report. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the report. In addition, we invite the readers to comment on it since the report should be viewed as part of the ongoing dialogue to define and develop enhanced interaction between universities, national laboratories, and industry. The opinions expressed in the report are those of the expert panel and do not represent NSF policy. William C. Harris Joseph Bordogna Assistant Director Assistant Director Mathematical and Physical Sciences Engineering Executive Summary This workshop brought together a balanced panel of industrial R&D leaders and university and government laboratory scientists and engineers (see attachment). The panel strongly reaffirmed the assertions of previous, more extensive studies that advanced materials and processing is entering a particularly productive phase. What animates the interests of basic materials science and engineering faculty in our universities also has the great potential to provide the knowledge base and expertise that can be used by U.S. industry to innovate and produce new products and processes that will give them a competitive advantage, while at the same time addressing environmental and other quality-of- life concerns. The challenge to the workshop was not to identify all the areas that are both scientifically exciting and have the potential for significant impact, but rather to choose from the rich array of possibilities. The attached description of the areas selected represent our judgment of some of the best opportunities; but there are many other areas not described here that have significant potential for scientific and engineering advances and technological impact. Thus for materials science and engineering in general, and the AMPP program in particular, there is a strong connection between fundamental research and research benefiting national needs. The challenge is to inform the research community of the opportunities for longer term impact and then let their curiosity and expertise determine the research programs they choose to undertake. The proposals they submit should continue to be judged by merit review, with the excellence of the proposed ideas remaining the basis for support. With the changing focus of industrial research (see attached statement), it has become increasingly important that our nation's universities perform the basic research needed for the longer term. To meet that challenge effectively, the interactions between the researchers in our universities and their counterparts in industry need to be strengthened, and approaches need to be developed to ensure that the new knowledge generated is made available to those who can use it in a timely manner. Furthermore it is important that the longer term needs are continually exposed to the researchers in our nation's universities, and thus this workshop should be viewed as the first step in an ongoing process of enhancing interaction between the university, national laboratory, and industrial R&D communities. The areas of opportunity which were selected by the workshop participants were: Bio/Biomolecular Materials, Materials for the Information Age, and Special Materials. For each area, the scientific opportunities are described, the 5-year milestones are identified and the potential areas of impact are indicated. The areas of impact clearly reaffirm the key enabling role of advanced materials and processes for a broad range of industrial innovations and quality-of-life advances. This breadth of potential impact is further justification for a Federal role in support of these programs since no single company and, in many cases, no single industry will be the sole beneficiary from a specific advance. This point is further elaborated on in the Industrial Perspective on Advanced Materials and Processing statement which was crafted from the views expressed by the industrial participants in the workshop. Following that statement are brief descriptions of specific examples (lasers, optical fibers, high temperature superconductors) of the interplay between scientific advances and technological progress. Finally, there is the list of participants and their affiliations. Bio/Biomolecular Materials: Harnessing Nature's Chemistry Overview The field of bio/biomolecular materials is an exciting new area at the frontiers of materials research. It is based on the premise that Nature has already done the critical experiments, and it is up to us to better understand them and to learn how to profit from them. Three important areas of concentration are: (1) Products from living factories; (2) Bio-inspired systems and processes; and (3) Biomaterials by design for use in healthcare. Even though the field is in its infancy, several current technologies attest to its promise, utility, and economic benefits. For example, we now understand the fundamental biophysics of the light-switching protein, bacteriorhodopsin. Armed with this understanding, several companies have developed holographic memories based on this biomolecule. These memories have application in national security purposes, where they could be used by low-orbiting satellites to quickly check for objects that have moved upon subsequent orbits of the satellite. Another example is the production of bacterial cellulose, a process originally studied by NSF-supported researchers. Bacterial cellulose has superior water-absorbing properties and is now used for a wide range of applications, including medical sponges, enhanced-quality paper, and food bulking agents. The basic research and optimization were performed at Cetus; applications were developed by Weyerhauser. It is interesting to note that Ajinomoto performed completely parallel research and development in Japan. With these success stories as a platform, we now wish to outline three major areas of opportunity in bio/biomolecular materials. We use the concept of a cell as a factory for our central organizing principles. output= clean and value-added by-products input= renewable value-added resources biodegradable products In this analogy, DNA provides the management instructions. Various enzyme, protein, etc., workers carry out these instructions, and various intermediates are stored. Inputs to the factory are renewable resources; the cell operates in an aqueous environment. Its outputs are biodegradable materials and value-added by-products. The concept of a cell as a factory conveys the low-impact nature of bio- and bio-inspired processing. (1) Products From Living Factories Technical Description: Living systems manufacture an enormous range of materials and chemicals. The synthetic processes of living factories operate at ambient temperatures and pressures from low cost feedstocks and with very little waste. Pioneers of industry are beginning to use biological catalysts to gain the benefits of biosynthesis. The Nitto Corporation (Japan) operates an enzyme-based process that makes polymer-grade acrylamide without using toxic catalysts, and ICI (England) manufactures pure 2-chloropropionic acid via an enzymatic process. The U.S. materials industry is in the early stages of learning how to utilize biological systems to produce articles of commerce. The national need for new science and engineering to remain competitive in this area is great. Fortunately, the untapped opportunities are also enormous. Science has only recently come to appreciate that biodiversity, the reservoir from which examples of bioprocesses and bioproducts are drawn, is much greater than generally appreciated. Less than 1% of the different species that inhabit the earth have been described, or in any way examined, for useful products. New science and engineering for exploring these vast uncharted natural resources will certainly be rewarded with both new materials and new catalysts. The new catalysts will in turn enable more cost effective and environmentally friendly routes of chemical synthesis. Not only are there new opportunities to discover useful new catalysts, but it is also possible to extend the performance characteristics of natural biomolecules by using the technology known as "directed evolution." For example, the enzyme subtilisin has been quickly and economically converted into a catalyst that is active in an organic solvent, which greatly extends its utility. This ability to build upon nature's tool kit should be systematically exploited to enhance U.S. competitiveness. Milestones: · Identify biochemical methods that will enable synthesis of new materials or materials intermediates; · Develop combinatorial methods for discovering new materials; · Develop methods for exploring the universe of biodiversity for new materials. Impact: New biomolecules and biomaterials promise both financial and quality of life benefits for society. Biocatalytic routes to monomers are not only environmentally benign, but they will enable the economical synthesis of highly functional polymers. Bioprocesses are naturally well suited for use with feedstocks derived from renewable resources, thus contributing to sustainable manufacturing systems and reducing our national dependence on foreign oil. Furthermore, biomaterials are generally biodegradable or completely recyclable. This area has a high potential impact on energy production and utilization. In the realm of nano-scale materials, biomolecules will have special impact as a result of the high specificity of their molecule-molecule interactions. For example, one can envision nanoscale reactors and sensors that are safe and reliable parts of artificial organs, depending on the integrations of biomaterials with other high performance materials. This area has a high potential impact on healthcare. (2) Bio-Inspired Systems and Processes Technical Description: Nature is replete with systems and processes which are highly efficient and developed for specific functions. Many of these materials and chemicals exhibit valuable properties that greatly exceed those of human-made products. An example of a highly developed and efficient light weight package is the egg shell. Another example is the strength of spider drag line silk, which rivals that of Kevlar. Examples of efficient biological processes are the enzymatic catalytic processes that are necessary for all life. Knowledge gained through study of these systems and processes will be applied to provide improved processes and engineered materials systems. Milestones: · Develop sensor structures at interface between biological component and nanoscale semiconductor; · Define level of complexity in self assembling and self healing systems; · Extend usefulness of biomolecules by extending their range of stability through the use of directed evolution as applied to extreme thermophiles; · Develop robust biocatalysts for use in industrial processes; · Develop bioremediation strategies for cleaning up heavy/radio-active metals; · Develop engineering techniques for large scale bioprocessing and biomimetic processing. Impact: · Analytical tools for improved sensing (environmental, resource exploration, etc.); · New enzymatic processes which revolutionize chemical and fuels processing toward valuable new products produced at low cost; · Development of a new class of bio-inspired, tertiary, complex materials. (3) Biomaterials by Design for use in Healthcare Technical description: Materials currently being used in prosthetic and replacement applications are materials which were originally designed for non-biological applications. There are well documented examples of implant failure or poor designs due to use of materials that are not biologically compatible. There are recent advances in biophysics, molecular biology, cell biology and materials design that, if integrated, should enable the fabrication and design of materials that would improve the structure and function of semi-synthetic body components such as organs, skin, veins, ducts, joints and blood for use in human patients. Products resulting from such research would improve the quality of life and perhaps extend the life of healthcare patients dealing with dehabilitating or life-threatening diseases. Milestones: · Gain an understanding of what biological insults lead to material failure such as surface interaction, binding, and wear and tear response; · Gain an understanding of the structural demands needed for useful biocompatible prosthetic or replacement materials; · Develop improved materials, including bio-materials for specific applications. Impact: The national impact would be improved quality of life for patients dealing with life-threatening diseases, including an alternative non-tainted blood supply. Also, advances in non-invasive medicine would be possible. Materials for the Information Age Overview The simultaneous revolutions in computation, communications, displays and storage have led to naming the present time in history the Information Age. Rapid progress in these fields has been fueled by materials and processing breakthroughs whose origins lie in the knowledge base of materials science developed over the fifty year period since the 1940's. It is important to understand that the remarkable progress that we have observed is only the beginning of the information revolution. We are roughly at the position of the Wright brothers in the development of aeronautics, or perhaps at the first flight of a commercial aircraft. It is extremely important that the dramatic rate of improvement in the technology made over the past 30 years be sustained. This will require continued basic research, as the lead time between the discoveries of research and their utilization in technology is generally a decade or more. The history of key devices of the information age, such as the transistor, laser, optical fiber and optical amplifier, illustrate vividly the time required to gain commercial value from basic scientific discovery. All the technologies of the information age, ranging from silicon integrated circuits to fiber, optoelectronics and displays, face challenges as we attempt to continue the rapid progress of the last four decades. Eventually technologies will approach limits set by the laws of physics; for example, when devices become so small that they contain only a few electrons, but before those limits are reached, the challenges are likely to be both economic and technical. Examples are the cost of silicon fabrication lines, or the lack of inexpensive very large area flat panel displays. In this context, recent breakthroughs in the growth of silicon transistors directly on high temperature glass have generated totally new high quality displays. But these displays have fundamental processing difficulties in increasing their sizes from a few square inches to tens of square feet. Every field, from transportation to medical technology has made rapid progress based on the ever increasing cost effectiveness of microelectronics. Much of the hope for productivity increases in manufacturing and engineering are based on the improving performance of information based tools. As the limits of current technology are reached, new processes and materials must take the place of those which are stagnating and the research to identify these new materials and processes, as well as the characterization of the fundamental limits of the old ones, must take place in the next few years in order that the knowledge base be in place when it is needed. The challenge is to anticipate and explore the "limits" to the progress in electronics and determine what must be done to bypass those "limits" in materials and processing, as we know them today. NSF should support the basic research that provides the knowledge base necessary to allow progress when presently predictable "limits" are reached. Some of these "limits" are in the size, speed, cost, and power dissipation of transistors; the size, power, and "manufacturability" of large area displays; and the storage density, read and write time, and cost of memories. Two examples of promising areas of materials research that will impact the future growth of the information age are the study of nanostructures and the use of computers to model the properties of materials. (1) Nanostructures Technical Description: The first transistors were made of bulky pieces of semiconductor materials and wire, millimeters to centimeters in size. Today's transistors used in integrated circuits are less than one micron in size, or roughly ten thousand times smaller. It is anticipated that transistors in the not too distant future will be ten times smaller still, and then even perhaps one hundred times smaller. This progress in reducing the size of devices allows more of them to be placed on a chip, which increases the functionality of the integrated circuit, allowing at one time the greatly reduced cost of computing and communications. Indeed, the greater than two-fold increase per year of components in a silicon chip, often referred to as "Moore's Law", has provided unparalled economic impetus that has allowed the development of multi-megabit memories from single transistors in less than fifty years. If the circuits that will be commonplace in twenty years are to work in this land of extremely small dimensions, it is essential that laboratory scientists blaze the trail by first becoming familiar with its terrain. This analogy with exploration of the western United States by the pioneers, before it could be extensively settled by society, is accurate and important. It is essential that NSF support such explorations in a land where devices become so small that they not only tax current fabrication methods, but also exhibit qualitatively different electronic, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties. These latter may hold the key to circuits and devices that not only posess higher functionality and greater density, but also offer performance enhancements present only at these scales, such as suppression of noise in optical devices. In order to realize those goals, we must develop the requisite tools and probes to shape and characterize these tiny building blocks of future electronic and optical technology. Milestones: At present, commercially produced transistors have minimum feature sizes of less than 1 micron (1000 nanometers). In research laboratories, the production of structures with dimensions between 100 to 500 nanometers is commonplace; devices with even smaller dimensions have been made. The objective for the next 5-10 years is to establish reliable, reproducible means of fabricating arrays of uniform structures with dimensions of 10 to 100 nanometers. Important fundamental properties of these structures should be established, and the implications of these properties on device performance should be investigated. Development of the fabrication techniques needed will require both new fabrication tools and new strategies, such as the utilization of "self-assembling" structures. The objective for the next 20 years is to continue to develop fabrication and characterization techniques for structures at yet smaller sizes: dimensions 1 to 10 nanometers in an integrated approach, with the parallel development of circuit architectures that take advantage of the unique properties of these nanostructures, and go beyond the computing strategies currently used. One example is the recently demonstrated mapping of a computational problem onto the structure of DNA. Our ability to manipulate single atoms or clusters of atoms should allow us to define similarly complex arrays onto which computational problems can be mapped. Impact: Scientific understanding of nanostructures, or more broadly, the land where the size of devices approaches atomic dimensions, is essential if past progress in information age technology is to continue. Individual devices must be made smaller and be more closely packed in order to continue the growth in complexity and functionality of microelectronic circuits, at lower cost. The impact of continued scaling down in size and increase in density needs to be understood, and new strategies for reliable fabrication, and ultimately manufacture, must be developed. Moreover, qualitatively different electronic, optical and structural properties will characterize these nanostructures, and these may be utilized in new device schemes and circuit architectures. Research in this area will have impact in every part of the economy, already dominated by the technology of the information age. (2) Modeling of Molecular Structures Technical Description: In the past, new materials have been discovered by experimentation and intuition. One example is high temperature superconductors, which were discovered by scientists exploring oxides for their ferroelectric properties. For the search for technologically valuable new materials to be more effective, one approach is to make the experimentation more rapid by the simultaneous use of many small samples with screening techniques, the other is to make the prediction of the structure and properties more accurate. Thus an important area is that of modeling molecular structures and their electronic and optical properties Milestones: Due to breakthroughs in the last five years, we can currently model 100 atoms for 100 time steps, which is enough to explore simple dynamic and electronic properties of small crystals. New algorithms are being developed which are much faster than the old ones, and computer power is also increasing at such a rate that, if properly supported, we should be able to model 10,000 atoms for 1,000,000 time steps within 5-10 years. This is enough to characterize the nanodefects which determine the bulk physical properties of real materials. In 20 years, increased computational power will enable the modeling of structures consisting of single atoms out to the level of millions of atoms on realistic time scales, and will allow the materials designer to predict the properties of materials over all dimension scales. Impact: Development of modeling tools could well double the effectiveness of materials research by revealing how nature really assembles materials, and which approaches are feasible and which are not. Even well before the knowledge and techniques are mature enough to predict bulk properties, the ability to predict the behavior of defects, grain boundaries and interfaces will be very useful since often they are the limiting factors in the performance of materials. This impact of the work will be on the improvement of present device materials, and later in the more efficient prediction of valuable new materials. Special Materials Overview In the process of identifying areas of opportunity in Advanced Materials and Processing three were identified that had a different scope than the Biomolecular and Biomaterials and Materials for the Information Age areas. They have been grouped under the category of Special Materials. In fact, this category can more broadly represent the various areas of opportunity that did not make our final selection. As stated in the Executive Summary, the major problem confronting the workshop was to select from a large number of exciting research areas that have the potential for longer term technological impact. The three chosen represent a good cross- section of the types of materials and opportunities. The first one on carbon based materials includes areas that have had recent exciting progress in their synthesis and where there is reason to believe that further advances in understanding and controlling their synthesis can result in many applications. This example can be characterized as science driven. The second example of packaging materials seeks to extend the significant progress made in understanding polymers to achieve new properties required by packaging. This can be viewed as being needs driven. Finally, the third example involves a well established objective, improved fuel cells and the highly studied phenomenon of electrochemistry. It seeks to define from an overall systems perspective, including the materials used, what areas require more fundamental understanding and engineering advances in order to achieve enhanced performance. (1) Low Temperature and Pressure Synthesis of Carbon-Based Materials: from Buckyballs to Diamond Technical Description: Although diamond and graphite are familiar materials, it has only recently been realized that many forms of carbon can readily be made near ambient conditions. Buckminsterfullerenes (buckyballs) are large clusters (C60, C70, etc.) showing superconductivity, intercalations, and possible catalytic properties. Glassy carbon, carbon fibers, and porous graphite are made by controlled pyrolysis of organic precursors. The control of porosity produces materials with specific adsorption, filtration, and catalytic activity. Now made by empirical processes, these materials need fundamental study to understand better structure-property relations. Opportunities for fundamental study include the following: tailoring of porosity by understanding synthesis mechanisms, better understanding of gas adsorption and the character of carbon surfaces and micropores, understanding of catalysis, synthesis at low temperature of carbons containing metals, organics, and other constituents, processing of composites containing, for example, ceramic particles in carbon micropores or carbon fibers in ceramics. A fundamental understanding of the structural chemistry, electronic and physical properties, and mechanical properties of carbon-based materials will provide new lightweight materials and may lead to less expensive synthetic routes. Low-Pressure-Temperature metastable synthesis of diamond for industrial applications in machine tools, wear resistant surfaces (lo-friction and bearing), and areas that require high strength and thermal properties, is a good example of a strategic "materials" area that can be developed by fundamental research in the next five years. It is an example with possible extension to the production of strong ceramic materials in general. Diamond is unusual as a material in that it has the most extreme values of thermal, mechanical optical, and chemical properties for application in the harsh environments of industry and consumer applications. Recent development has resulted in the ability to form diamond from methane and other common gases at ambient pressure and relatively low temperature. Diamond can now be coated as a film of various thickness (micron to millimeter) on tools, bearings, and other wear surfaces. The processes can also be used to deposit thick diamond to mold monolithic parts. Areas of fundamental research that are needed include gaining an understanding of the basic process itself and the interactions of diamond with the deposition surface. The objectives of the research include broadening the process to vary the character and properties of diamond, to make the process more efficient, and to gain fundamental knowledge of adherence of metastable diamond to metals, ceramics, and plastics. Milestones: · Develop an efficient process of plasma production of "diamond-formations" based on a fundamental understanding of the process: a.Produce uniform polycrystalline diamond of controllable grain-size, thickness, and surface area to exceed 100 square inches; b.Establish the laws of adherence of metastable diamond to metals, ceramics, and plastics; · Develop purity of metastable diamond and "near-diamond carbon" to meet strength and toughness requirements, optical clarity, and thermal conductivity; · Determine the properties of n-type and p-type semiconducting diamond; · Develop an efficient process to synthesize other similar materials of two components (such as carbon+nitrogen and boron+nitrogen) by the plasma deposition method; · Extend the techniques of diamond synthesis to the "plasma torch" whereby materials surfaces can be "spray-coated" with diamond; · Prepare graphites with sizes in the 5-10 angstrom scale; · Understand the electrical (and superconducting) behavior of fullerenes; · Investigate catalysis by carbons of different porosities; · Model (from fundamental theory) interactions of different sized pores with hydrogen, water, methanol, etc.; · Provide materials of controlled particle size and porosity as starting materials for composites. Impact: The impact will be realized mainly in applications not possible with any other materials. Buckyball-structured materials have unique properties ranging from catalytic, electronic-superconducting to strong materials with diamond-like properties. Many properties, and thus applications have not been explored but promise to lead to such areas as "molecular storage" functions, "molecular tubes", and carbon-ceramic materials and templates. Metastable diamond (coated) surfaces will lead to broad application of heat-sinks and thermal management of advanced semiconductor devices, to new high-strength bearings for down- hole petroleum drilling motors, and other highly stressed bearing needs, to optical windows and lenses for x-ray devices and electro-optical devices, to drills, cutting tools and machine tools, and to a new generation of semiconductors. The carbon-based materials are in most cases non-toxic and benign to living things. (2) Food and Medical Packaging: Two Dimensional Composites Technical Description: Packaging for food and medicine is a multi-billion dollar, multibillion pound, rapidly growing business. It now faces sharply increased demands highlighted by universal in-kind recyclability (as aluminum cans) and open-shelf storage of traditionally refrigerated foods (e.g., milk, soups). Existing packaging systems use multiple materials to achieve the needed functionalities, imparing their recyclability. The familiar paper, foil and plastic juice-box is an example. New materials and process understanding is needed to achieve in a single polymer the required strength, barrier, uptake sealing and aesthetic functionalities. Perhaps even more fundamental is the lack in understanding of how the individual aspects can be optimally integrated to achieve best package performance. There is no composites science of packaging. The vision of success might be an optimally shaped, minimum weight, single polymer container having all the other functionalities generated by modifying its inner and outer surfaces. Milestones: Experimental studies, mathematical models and theoretical understandings that quantitatively relate: · Small molecule (oxygen, carbon dioxide, water) permeability to polymer chemistry and microstructure; · Reactivity of chemical functionalities at polymer surfaces to the same functionalities in well-defined molecular species; · Absorption and adsorption of typical food flavorants and polymer species (and their simple molecular surrogates) to polymer surface chemistry. Demonstration in some way that could prospectively be scaled to an industrial process of: · Means to provide desired polymer-surface chemical functionality in ways that do not lead to environmentally adverse consequences; · Minimally-invasive characterization techniques that can reveal the needed aspects of real systems, at least some of which have the prospect of being developed into on-line process control; · In-kind recycling of packages so made. Impact: · Packaging input to waste streams is reduced by several billion pounds; · US based packaging industry grows world-wide; · The volume of traditionally refrigerated food now sold in warm-storable form increases several fold, decreasing energy consumption accordingly. (3) Electrochemical Cells for Energy Conversion Technical Description: Conventional power plants and road vehicles use air-polluting heat engines. Clean, silent, and controlled combustion of fuels to produce electric power may be performed electrochemically. Conversely, electrolysis cells use electric power to obtain value-added chemical products including fuels such as hydrogen from water. A fuel represents stored chemical energy; long-term energy storage is a basic requirement for the emergence of alternate energy technologies. Electrochemical energy conversion has not been competitive with the heat engine for power plants and road vehicles because materials problems have limited the efficiency of generating high power and the convenience or speed of recharge. However, concerns over air pollution and our growing dependence on foreign oil have stimulated a fresh look at the materials problems, which have been highlighted by unsuccessful attempts to find engineering solutions around them. The relatively inexpensive search by a few individuals for new materials is now beginning to bear good fruit, and a flowering of renewed interest in electrochemical processes has begun. However, a fundamental focused effort in advanced materials and processing is needed to sustain the movement in this field. Such an effort should include: · the design of electrolytes, i.e., ionic conductors and electronic insulators, using crystalline solids, polymers, or composites consisting of polymer-liquid or ceramic-liquid combinations; · the design of insertion compounds that support mixed ionic/electronic conduction; · the investigation of ionic and electronic transport across interfaces that are beneficial, as opposed to corrosive, to the electrochemistry of a given process; · a study of the catalytic processes that control the rate and specificity of chemical reactions at interfaces (such studies would impact heterogeneous catalysis as well as electrocatalysis and photocatalysis, all processes fundamental to the processing of refined chemical products); and · the low-temperature synthesis and fabrication of complex composite structures containing interpenetrating, yet connected, phases with a large interfacial area. An electrochemical cell contains two metallic electrodes separated by a "separator" saturated with a liquid electrolyte; a solid electrolyte also acts as the separator. The electrolyte is an electronic insulator, but a good conductor of the "working ion" of the cell. During operation, an ionic current through the electrolyte inside the cell must match the electronic current passing between the electrodes through an external load where useful work is performed. The electrons and working ions are supplied by chemical reactions occurring at the electrode- electrolyte-reactant interface. The current delivered by a fuel cell is limited not only by cell design, but also by the intrinsic rate of chemical reaction at the three-phase interfaces and by the conductivity of the working ion in the electrolyte and across its interfaces with the electrodes and reactants. In a battery, the insertion/extraction of the working ion into/from an electrode replaces the chemical reaction as the rate-limiting step at an interface. Moreover, retention of the interface and of electronic contact between particles of a porous electrode on repeated discharge/recharge cycles through which the electrode particles change volume present major cell-design and materials problems. Liquids, liquid-polymer or liquid-ceramic composites, and polymers are used as electrolytes in low-temperature cells. Liquid or polymer electrolytes are required to maintain the electrode-electrolyte interface in batteries with solid reactants; they may also be used with gaseous or liquid reactants. High-temperature fuel cells would use oxide-ion electrolytes; unfortunately these solid ceramics require operation temperatures greater than 800 oC, whereas the protonic conductors are restricted to lower temperatures less than 100 oC, where fuel-cell reactions at an interface tend to be slower than desired. There is a clear need to develop electrolytes supporting fast proton or oxide-ion conduction at intermediate temperatures. Nevertheless, the recent design of a superior oxide-ion ceramic electrolyte now makes feasible the development of a high-temperature fuel cell for stationary power generation. The development of a room-temperature fuel cell capable of powering road vehicles with a liquid fuel must await the identification of an anode material capable of catalyzing a sufficiently rapid oxidation of liquid methanol; at the present time, room-temperature fuel cells use pure hydrogen gas as a fuel. Fostering long-term research to develop a catalytic anode for methanol oxidation would prove to be a significant strategic- research objective. The availability of rechargeable batteries of higher power and energy density promises to create a huge civilian and military market. The development of suitable host materials for reversible lithium insertion/extraction at both the anode and the cathode makes possible lighter-weight lithium rechargeable batteries with sufficient power density for a wide variety of applications. Exploitation of this development has been initiated in Japan, where the anodes were developed, and this commercial move has stimulated a worldwide activity. The impact of this development will be felt within 5-years, and in 10-years it will represent a multibillion-dollar industry. Milestones: · Commercialization of lithium rechargeable batteries with carbon anodes and oxide cathodes; · Feasibility demonstration of high-temperature solid-oxide fuel cell; · Progress on identification of a catalytic electrode for room- temperature methanol oxidation; · Progress on improved or lower-cost Lithium battery electrodes, oxide-ion electrolytes, medium-temperature proton electrolytes. Impact: The social impact of the new electrochemistry will be ubiquitous from medicine to portable power tools to distributed power systems and, with good luck, electric cars. It will improve air quality and make practical the use of alternate energy sources for the generation of convenient fuels. Industrial Perspective on Advanced Materials and Processing Most industrial products--from automobiles to electronic displays--are built of materials: metals, semiconductors, glasses, insulators, polymers, ceramics, and mixtures. New materials and new processes give unique properties, new types of performance, and important advantages in lower cost to the products derived from them, and competitive advantage to the companies that own and use them. The time required to go from the invention of new materials and processes to commercial sales of components incorporating them is usually long for two reasons. First, there are many steps to commercialization--invention, application, optimization, engineering, and production. Second, there is a "chicken and egg" problem: it is difficult to develop applications for a material until it is commercially available, and commercial production is not justified until there are applications. In the past, universities and industry--both defense and commercial industry--have shared in the invention of new materials in the U.S. In the past decade the most monolithic large industrial laboratories have become more narrowly focused, and have been joined by a loose network of small companies that are taking on an increasing role in invention and need not only the backing of academic fundamental research, but also novel means to access it. Large industries that are not involved in the production of materials in a major way are now largely moving away from the invention and development of fundamental new materials to the application of existing materials, for three reasons. First, the time required to realize a financial return from R&D in this area is very long (e.g., lasers, optical fibers, and high-temperature superconductors described on the following pages). Second, since the area of application of a new material is difficult to predict at the outset of the research, there is no assurance that the company that makes this type of investment will be the primary beneficiary of it (rather than a competitor, or companies in some entirely different area). Third, the defense sector--historically a very important source of new materials--has decreased in size and changed in focus; it is now less productive in terms of materials science. There is, therefore, an increased requirement in the U.S. for research in new materials and processing at universities. The opportunities in science and technology for the discovery and development of fundamentally new materials is excellent: the need for materials to give unique properties, and performance to components remains high; the sources of new materials from industry have decreased as the opportunities of developing new materials based primarily on relevance to national security have declined. NSF has the opportunity to play a unique role in supporting this vital field, to contribute both to fundamental understanding that underlies design and applications of materials, and to the discovery and development of new materials for use by U.S. industry. As stated in the Executive Summary, if such efforts are to be effective, we need to develop new approaches to ensure that the new knowledge that is generated will be made available in a timely manner to those who can translate it into new technology. Examples of Interplay Between Scientific Advances and Technological Progress Lasers The laser, which is a key component of all optical fiber communications systems but is also widely used in medicine, machining, compact disk players and supermarket check out counters, is an interesting example of the time, over 30-years in this case, that elapses between initial scientific discoveries and their commercial impact. The laser, first demonstrated in 1953, relied on a body of knowledge in atomic physics that was gained well before that date. The laser, being the optical analog of the maser, relied on decades of research in the spectroscopy of solids and gases. Solid state lasers, first demonstrated in 1960 in ruby, have their foundation in earlier knowledge of the optical properties of defects and impurities in crystals. The first continuous laser operated in a mixture of helium and neon gases in 1961. The path to a semiconductor laser operating continuously at room temperature was long and demanded major advances not only in semiconductor science, but also in the growth and processing of layered semiconductor structures, a field now known as "bandgap engineering", in which materials are designed to have properties very far from those found in bulk materials. Light-emitting diodes, operating first in liquid nitrogen, were made in 1960. A laser structure operated in liquid nitrogen in 1962, but it was 1970 before such lasers operated continuously at room temperature, about 1975 before they could be used in trials of optical communication systems. The widespread use of lasers in CD players was proposed in 1985 for devices grown by molecular beam epitaxy. It is important to note that, for each of these devices, the necessary knowledge base either had to be in place before the device could work, or was developed by those trying to make it work. The foundation knowledge has been traditionally supported by NSF in universities, the specific knowledge has in the past been generated by large industrial laboratories. However, with U.S. industry increasingly focusing its laboratories on more immediate technologies, the attention of NSF on basic research in strategic areas becomes all the more important. Optical Fibers Hundreds of thousands of miles of optical fiber cables now girdle the globe - each containing several hair thin strands of glass millions of times more transparent than even imagined possible three decades ago. The physical and chemical understanding on which these achievements depend - and the revolution in information technology they portend - draws from virtually every discipline and spans many decades. But not until 1970 was it demonstrated in the research laboratory that usable optical signals could be sent as far as one kilometer. Today such signals have successfully been transmitted and detected over tens of thousands of kilometers. Even more important, the discoveries of the early 1970's were rapidly transformed into commercially viable means to produce strong, transparent and inexpensive fibers capable first of hundreds then thousands and now millions of voice channels. Within the last five years, physical and chemical sciences have given optical communications another revolutionary boost. The optical amplifier, based on remote optical excitation of rare earth ions doped into the few micron diameter optical fiber core, has not only extended from hundreds but to tens of thousands of kilometers, practical optical signaling distances. It has virtually eliminated the need for the costly and complex "regenerator" whose function is to transform optical signals to electrical, and then to reshape, retime and amplify the pulses before reconversion to the optical format for further transmission. Regenerators have been the bane of undersea long distance, high-bit-rate communication systems. The optical amplifier promises greater reliability, lower cost and enhanced performance. And it rests clearly upon our fundamental understanding of the behavior of rare earths in glasses and upon the chemical knowledge required to incorporate these recalcitrant ions into production optical fibers. Understanding and control of the wavelength dependent absorption, delay and nonlinear properties of glass materials and of wave guides has again grown out of fundamental research in physical chemistry and condensed matter physics. This understanding, together with discoveries in the semiconductor physics of lasers and detectors, has made possible "wavelength division multiplexing" (WDM). Simply put, it enables us to multiply the information-carrying capacity of an optical fiber by N - the number of distinct optical wavelengths which the system will sustain. Today commercial systems exhibit bit rates exceeding 1 Gb/sec. Laboratory experiments are routinely surpassing this by over an order of magnitude. Optical amplifiers and WDM are allowing optical technology to expand at a rate exceeding one thousand fold per decade. Although it might appear that most of this work took place in industrial laboratories, two points are important to remember: · The knowledge base for these strategic research activities was largely generated by individual PI - university style research - ranging from energy levels in rare earths to the physics of the disordered state, strength and degradation modes of glasses, etc.; · The strategic research activities supported in industry of the sort we describe here have been greatly reduced in scope and time frame in the past few years. NSF or similar funding is thus of critical future importance. High Temperature Superconductors The importance of fundamental materials research, in which scientists and engineers are supported to investigate new families of materials, can be demonstrated most easily by pointing to the serendipitous discovery of high temperature superconductors. The two scientists, Bednorz and Muller, had begun research (with little management support!) to determine the ferroelectric properties of oxides. Although their particular interest was in ferroelectricity, their work resulted in the discovery of superconductivity at temperatures most people considered impossible. In fact, the generally agreed "limit" to the range of superconductivity, say less than 25 Kelvin, was soon exceeded by a factor of five. This is an example of how "limits" of current knowledge are often overcome by the discovery of new materials. The impact of this discovery is already being felt 8 years later, which is a short time compared to the timescale of laser development, for example. Products based on high temperature superconductors are already being sold, and a number of small U.S. companies now employ roughly 400 people in an embryonic industry. Some experts have predicted markets of $150 billion by 2020 for this industry world wide. Advanced Materials and Processing Program (AMPP) NSF Panel on Areas of Opportunity Professor Peter Eisenberger Loomis Laboratory of Physics (Co-Chair) University of Illinois at Princeton Materials Institute Urbana-Champaign Princeton University 1110 West Green Street 70 Prospect Avenue, Room 320 Urbana, IL 61801 Princeton, NJ 08540-5211 Dr. Paul M. Horn Professor George M. Whitesides Vice President, Storage (Co-Chair) Director, IBM Almaden Research Professor and Chairman Center Department of Chemistry IBM Almaden Research Center Harvard University 650 Harry Road Cambridge, MA 02138 San Jose, CA 95120-6099 Dr. Peter M. Bell Professor Evelyn L. Hu Vice President Corporate Director, QUEST Research University of California at and Chief Scientist Santa Barbara Norton Corporation Santa Barbara, CA 93106 P.O. Box 374 Galesville, MD 20765 Dr. Jennie Hunter-Cevera Head of the Center for Professor Robert P.H. Chang Environmental Materials Research Center Biotechnology The Technological Institute, The Lawrence Berkeley Room 2033 Laboratory Northwestern University Bldg. 50A, MS 4119 2145 Sheridan Road Berkeley, CA 94720 Evanston, IL 60208-3116 Professor Lynn Jelinski Dr. Russell R. Chianelli Department of Biotechnology Senior Research Associate Cornell University Corporate Research Laboratory 130 Biotechnology Building Exxon Research and Engineering Ithaca, NY 14853 Co. Annandale, NJ 08801 Professor Joseph A. Johnson Distinguished Professor Professor John B. Goodenough of Science and Engineering V.H. Cockrell Centennial CeNNAs Professor of Engineering Florida A&M University Department of Materials 1800-3 E. Dirac Drive, A337 Science Tallahassee, FL 32310 and Engineering, ETC5-160 The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-1084 Professor Gretchen Kalonji Department of Materials Science Professor Laura H. Greene & Engineering Roberts Hall, FB-10 Sandia National Laboratories University of Washington Department 1102, MS 0350 Seattle, WA 98112 P.O. Box 5800 Albuquerque, NM 87185 Dr. Michael J. Kelley Central Science & Engineering Dr. John M. Rowell Laboratories Vice President & Chief Experimental Station Technical Officer E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Conductus Inc. 969 W. Maude Avenue P.O. Box 80304 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Wilmington, DE 19880-0304 Professor Michael G. Spencer Dr. Robert A. Laudise Howard University Director of Research School of Engineering AT&T Bell Laboratories, Room MSRCE, Room 1124 1A-264 2300 6th Street, N.W. 600 Mountain Avenue Washington, DC 20059 Murray, Hill, NJ 07974 Dr. Kevin R. Stewart Dr. Barry L. Marrs President & CEO Industrial Biocatalysis Molecular Optoelectronics 7 Possum Tree Lane Corporation Kennett Square, PA 19348 877 25th Street Watervliet, NY 12189 Professor Carolyn W. Meyers Associate Dean and Associate Dr. Michael P. Teter Professor Corning Glass Works, FR-5 of Mechanical Engineering Sullivan Park Georgia Institute of Corning, NY 14831 Technology College of Engineering Dr. David N. Wormley Atlanta, GA 30332-0360 Dean, College of Engineering Pennsylvania State University Professor Alexandra Navrotsky 101 Hammond Building Dept. of Geological & University Park, Pennsylvania Geophysical Sciences 16802 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 Dr. Glen H. Pearson Polymer Processing Eastman Kodak Company Building 2, Kodak Park Rochester, NY 14652-4713 Dr. S. Thomas Picraux OMB 3145-0058 P.T.: 34 K.W.: 1002000 0600000 1003000 NSF 95-140