Collaborative Research and Education in Advanced Materials (CREAM)

The Partnership for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) between the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (NCAT) State University, an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) will use advanced materials research to rally students around the concept that new materials and research discoveries have the power to transform their communities as well as society at large. Advanced materials research and education will serve as a gateway to attract students from historically underrepresented population to STEM fields at the graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 levels.

At the core of this PREM effort is a synergistic partnership to establish a diverse alliance of scientists, engineers, social scientists, and education experts. Consistent intellectual interaction and reciprocal exchange of NCAT and UCSD MRSEC faculty members, students, and postdoctoral fellows will reinforce this partnership. The NCAT-UCSD PREM will use advanced materials research and a seamlessly integrated education program to develop a network of relationships that reinforce and populate the PREM pathway and increase recruitment, retention, and degree attainment of underrepresented students at all levels.

The PREM pathway will provide both financial support and mentoring for over 50 undergraduate and 30 graduate students and trainees during its tenure at NCAT. This project is partially supported with co-funding from the HBCU-UP program from the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EES) in the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) and Sustainable Chemistry from the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS).

The NCAT-UCSD PREM is centered on three research thrusts focusing on Two-Dimensional (2D) Materials (Thrust 1), Plasmonic Materials (Thrust 2), and Biomaterials (Thrust 3). Thrust 1 will innovate novel 2D materials with wafer-scale integration using equilibrium and non-equilibrium synthesis techniques. This effort will develop new methods to control rationally and model defects in 2D materials, enabling the development of robust, flexible electronic devices.

Thrust 2 will expand the horizon of conventional optics by investigating new types of plasmonic materials that enable the concentration and enhancement of light beyond the diffraction limit. Creating new knowledge regarding the plasmonic and photonic behavior of transition metal nitrides, including thin films and nanostructures and their transformation into oxynitrides, will be the focus of Thrust 2.

Thrust 3 will elucidate the chemical reactions that give rise to biodegradable and bio-conjugated metals. The novelty of Thrust 3 is two-fold: (i) an increased understanding of how metal micro- and nano-particles biodegrade through systematic experiments and theoretical validation, and (ii) the synthesis of biocompatible polymer/nanoparticle composite materials to enable controlled metal degradation in complex biological environments.

The research partnership across NCAT and UCSD will lead to new methods for theory-assisted materials design, functional and precisely tunable materials, and detailed insights into fundamental materials behavior that will open up new avenues in technology, environmental sustainability, human health, and civil infrastructure. Together, the research and educational accomplishments that will be realized during the NCAT-UCSD PREM will result in establishing NCAT as an HBCU that is a globally recognized hub for materials research and education.

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.