IRG2 designs and synthesizes a new family of atomically precise, functional materials in which the fundamental units are preformed nanoscale building blocks, i.e., superatoms. This program is developing transformative and systematic methods to control the coupling between superatoms, enabling novel collective physical properties. Tuning the superatoms’ electronic, magnetic, vibrational, and symmetry characteristics through synthetic chemistry will allow the team to tackle three longstanding challenges in materials science: design of reconfigurable phase change materials; directional transport of energy, charge and spin; and emergent quantum phenomena.  These materials have applications in digital memory, as switches and switchable absorbers; and as materials with anisotropic phonon spectra, which are of interest for new photodetectors and field effect transistors.