The major theme of the MRSEC research and education programs at the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) is Mastery of Materials at the Atomic and Molecular Level. The objective is to educate scientists and engineering students (largely PhD students) and postdoctoral researchers in the methods of research used to tackle cutting edge problems in materials research. At the same time CCMR manages and maintains a set of shared experimental facilities that enable this research to be carried out; these facilities are also actively used by a wide spectrum of researchers from across the campus, from other Universities, Government Laboratories and Industry. CCMR also has an expansive and effective educational outreach program that helps students and teachers from primary, secondary and local colleges to learn about materials sciences, recent advances and how to integrate this new knowledge into the classroom. Finally, CCMR's Industrial Partnerships program speeds the transition of new scientific discoveries into technologies that can promote economic growth and opportunities.
Our research is organized into teams focused on several specific topics, including: Controlling Electrons at Interfaces, "Building Blocks" for Photonic Systems, and the Study of the Dynamics of Growth of Complex Materials. CCMR also manages a "Seed Program" that supports smaller short term activities that explore high-risk/high-payoff areas and that integrates new faculty into our interdisciplinary culture. Our long term goal is to control materials systems at or near the level of atomistic precision (atom identity and geometric placement), as is possible in the synthesis of some organic molecules. Our vision is that such control will allow precision tuning of properties and is likely to uncover vast new areas of science, to facilitate the construction of a wide variety of novel devices, and to enable technologies not presently imagined. The proposed research capitalizes on unique science we recently developed, substantially extends the effort in new and ground breaking directions, and explores entirely new topics; all require new talents, new skills and new senior investigators.
