The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the Cornell University supports a broadly based interdisciplinary research program on control of advanced ordered and disordered materials at the nanoscale. The research is carried out in five interdisciplinary research groups with appropriate seed projects. IRG A Nanostructured Materials: Electron and Spin Transport will exploit uniquely nanostructured materials to elucidate fundamental issues of electron and spin transport in systems whose electronic structure have considerable technological potential; IRG B Nanoscale Polymer-Inorganic Hybrid Materials will combine synthesis, physical characterization, and modeling to control the properties of new generations of industrially important polymer-inorganic nanoscale hybrid materials; IRG C Oxide Glasses: Surfaces and Thin-film Interfaces will develop fundamental knowledge of the chemistry and nono- and intermediate length scale structure at and near the surfaces and key interfaces in silicate glasses crucial to emerging thin-film-on-glass technologies; IRG D Fundamentals of Energetic Surface Processing will develop further the means to improve thin film deposition using novel energetic supersonic and hyperthermal ion beams; and IRG E Dynamic Mechanical Properties of Nanoscale Materials will strive to understand and control energy dissipation and the non-linear response of nano-mechanical oscillators to assist in enabling new GHz technologies. The MRSEC includes a comprehensive educational outreach programs targeting K-12; undergraduate; graduate; school teachers and the general public. It places special emphasis on outreach to rural school districts. The Center maintains a significant set of shared experimental facilities that provide state of the art instrumentation for the entire University; act as a focal point for graduate education and for knowledge transfer to industry. Participants in the Center include 44 senior investigators, 8 postdoctoral associates, 41 graduate students, 20 undergraduates, and 18 technicians and other support personnel.
Professor Neil Ashcroft directs the MRSEC.