MRI: Acquisition of an Advanced Multi-Functional Wide-Wavelength-Range Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer for Multi-Materials Characterization

This Major Research Instrumentation project is jointly funded by the Division of Materials Research and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Nontechnical Description:

An infrared spectrometer with a wide range of measuring capabilities benefits the research and teaching needs of faculty and students at Iowa State University and nearby 4-year Coe College and is a Midwest regional research resource for infrared spectroscopy and microscopy. This instrument supports a broad range of interdisciplinary research in fields that include materials science, chemistry, physics, agriculture, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering.

Application areas for the instrument are solid-state batteries, solid-state materials, cell membranes, plant genome editing, characterization of diseased tissues, optical materials, additive manufacturing, and glass science. This instrument advances these research fields and provides training to postdoctoral fellows and graduate and undergraduate student researchers.

The infrared spectrometer facilitates courses in materials characterization, cement concrete, and engineering design and enables activities that introduce infrared spectroscopy to secondary school students locally and across the US in measuring greenhouse gas concentrations across various locations.

Technical Description:

The infrared spectrometer purchased with this Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant has four major attributes, wide wavelength range from deep far-infrared to ultraviolet for probing the full optical response of a material, high sensitivity for probing small but critical chemical differences in materials, high spectral resolution for probing and separating similar but distinct chemical species, and infrared microscopy and surface reflectance capabilities for probing materials surface chemistry and topologies. At least seven research projects at Iowa State University benefit from this acquisition and include mixed oxy-sulfide-nitride glassy solid electrolytes that expand the understanding of solid electrolyte chemistry of solid-state batteries; biomechanical form, function, and performance in hierarchical bone and enamel biological materials; interactions of different structures and mechanisms in improved delivery systems used for CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing; studies of hybrid 1D and 2D magnetic materials; biological tissues which improve the discrimination of disease transfection in agricultural animals; chemical signal encoded infrared spectra to correlate the cell membrane composition with the biophysical measurements performed by fluorescence microscopy; and quantum charge dynamics and excitations in novel two-dimensional materials.

This instrument also benefits the research of Physics faculty and undergraduate students from 4-year Coe College in ionic transport in glass, laser modification of vanadate glasses, high alkali borate glasses, and high energy particle detection using novel scintillating materials.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.