The CHARM team successfully used computational design to produce new, non-natural peptide molecules that self-assemble into discrete nanoparticles that are 2 nm in diameter and 4 nm in length. The new nanoparticles, examples of the class of protein structure call coiled coils, result in exciting new self-assembly behavior with potential to impact materials technology.
CHARM partnered with academic departments and local industry at the University of Delaware to provide experiential exposure to STEM fields, collegiate lab settings, and industry settings and equipment to students historically underrepresented in STEM. Students visited one department or industry partner for one day per week, for 7 weeks.
The University of Delaware MRSEC team has developed and implemented a hybrid THz radiation source that combines a conventional III-V semiconductor-based photoconductive antenna with a spintronic emitter integrated into a single device. This hybrid emitter leverages the unique properties of both components: the wavelength sensitivity of the semiconductor material and the wavelength insensitivity of the spintronic heterostructure.
Intellectual merit: Magnetic skyrmions are topologically-protected spin textures that manifest in certain noncentrosymmetric ferromagnets under the right conditions of temperature and field.
Intellectual merit: Biomolecular assembly processes involving a competition between specific intermolecular interactions and thermodynamic phase instability have been implicated in a number of pathological states and technological applications of biomaterials.
Intellectual merit: Chemically dissimilar polymers are rarely miscible due to an entropy of mixing that scales as 1/N, where N is the degree of polymerization. As a consequence, the compatibilization of immiscible polymer blends presents a major challenge to plastics recycling efforts.
The approach of using heteroanionic materials (combining oxygen and fluorine) offers a new strategy for realizing cuprate-like physics in nickelates, which could lead to the discovery of new superconducting materials.
A new photoluminescent rhenium chalcohalide cluster compound, Rb6Re6S8I8, with superlative optoelectronic properties has been developed. This material shows strong potential for advanced light-emitting devices due to its high photoluminescent quantum yield and solution processability.
Conventional semiconductor heterojunctions and homojunctions are foundational building blocks of optoelectronic devices including solar cells and light-emitting diodes. Non-centrosymmetric two-dimensional (2D) materials enable the engineering of mixed-dimensional heterostructures with complex optoelectronic properties, such as a polarization-dependent photoresponse.
Moiré quantum materials host exotic electronic phenomena through enhanced internal Coulomb interactions in twisted two-dimensional heterostructures. When combined with the exceptionally high electrostatic control in atomically thin materials, moiré heterostructures have the potential to enable next-generation electronic devices with unprecedented functionality.
