Friday, September 6, 2002Volume 2, Issue 13
Director's Message
We have worked hard to minimize the requests to you for information about your research activities, but today I have one of those requests! It is the beginning of the school year, and we need to update the MRI Directory and Web site. (This request replaces the paper survey we have done every Fall in the past, and with your cooperation, will eliminate anymore requests until next Fall).
We have established a simple on-line form that will serve two purposes: to update our directory and other databases, AND to update your one-page research profile. Please go to the MRI Web-Site http://www.mri.psu.edu, click on the top menu bar for "Directories", and then the left menu bar for "Faculty".
First, take a look at your one-page research profile. Some of these were compiled by our staff (for Materials Day, April 2002), and need to be updated by you with better descriptions. Some of you do not have a profile, either because you are new to Penn State or our staff could not find any research information (so look at someone else's profile to get the idea). Most of you may simply need to update the profile you submitted in April 2002.
Then, click on "Update Your Profile" on the left menu bar to make changes to your one-page profile, as well as to update our database. (Note: of course, you can update your one-page research profile again anytime you wish.)
This will not take much time, and is an important aspect of your MRI affiliation. These profiles are intended to help us market you and your research, as well as to assemble new interdisciplinary research teams.
Best wishes for a productive year.
Carlo Pantano
MRI Faculty Spotlight
Associate Professor Qi Li is a condensed matter physicist studying a number of thin film electronic and electromagnetic phenomena. The early part of her career at the University of Maryland, Bellcore and finally Penn State was spent studying high Tc superconducting oxide thin film and superlattices. Recent efforts have focused on the unique magnetoresistance properties of certain thin film oxide materials and spin injection effect. Prof. Li uses pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and laser MBE to deposit rare earth- (and alkaline earth-) doped manganese oxide films onto single crystal substrates.
For the full story go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/articles/QiLi/
WIEN2002
The WIEN2002: Hands-on Workshop on the WIEN2k Package, organized by Jorge Sofo and the Materials Simulation Center at Penn State University, was held from July 22 to July 25, 2002. The WIEN2k Package is a code to perform electronic structure calculations of solids using density functional theory (DFT). It is based on the full-potential (linearized) augmented plane-wave ((L)APW) + local orbitals (lo) method, one among the most accurate schemes for band structure calculations. The workshop consisted of a set of lectures given by invited speakers, guided examples of the use of the package in a tutorial form, and exercise/lab sessions for the participants to use the code under the coaching of the Invited speakers and tutors. All the invited speakers are developers of the package:
- Karlheinz Schwarz, from the Technical University of Vienna (Austria), leader of the project.
- Peter Blaha, from the Technical University of Vienna (Austria), principal author and maintainer of the code.
- Claudia Ambrosh-Draxl, form the University of Graz (Austria), principal author and maintainer of the optical properties package.
- David Singh, from the Naval Research Lab. (USA), expert in the LAPW method and author of the book "Planewaves, Pseudopotentials and the LAPW Method".
- Georg Madsen, from the Technical University of Vienna (Austria), expert in the relativistic extensions to the package.
- Joachim Luitz, from luitz.com (Austria), developer of ELNES extension to the package and author of the web-enabled GUI to the code w2web.
- Jorge Sofo, from Penn State University (USA), developer of the "Atoms in Molecules" module and the automatic linearization energy search.
The presentations covered the scientific basis of the package and the technical details, including: DFT concepts and applications, local orbital extensions, optical properties calculations, spin-orbit and relativistic calculations, LDA+U, core level spectroscopies, and transport.
The workshop hosted 34 participants from Brazil, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, and the USA. The 24 US participants came from different Universities and National Labs across the country including: Arizona State University, Baylor University, Brookhaven National Lab, George Mason University, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Lehigh University, Michigan State University, National Renewable Energy Lab., North Carolina State University, Northwestern University, Oklahoma State University, Penn State University, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, and West Virginia University. In addition to the registered participants the workshop activities were open to the local graduate and undergraduate students.
This workshop is traditionally held in Vienna, Austria, every two years. This was the first meeting in the US. It represented an excellent opportunity to bring the authors of the package in contact with the US community of users, including local graduate students.
Nature Materials
Nature has come out with a new monthly publication geared toward the materials community - "Nature Materials" Recognizing the size and scope of the materials field; Nature began publishing on September 1, 2002.
To subscribe or to sign up for the nature materials free weekly e-newsletter called "Materials Update" go to:
http://www.nature.com/materials
AND, Penn State has the very first article in Volume 1! Congratulations to Xiaoxing Xi, Joan Redwing, Qi Li, Darrell Schlom, Zi-Kui Liu, their post-docs and students... a nice example of interdisciplinary research.
To view the article go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v02i13/Article.pdf
A Faculty Guide to Sponsored Funding Workshop
A Faculty Guide to Sponsored Funding will be held on Tuesday, September 17, 2002, from 9:30 a.m. to noon in the Materials Research Laboratory, Room 189. This workshop is a general overview of sponsored programs processes and procedures with an introduction to funding opportunities, proposal preparation, internal forms, sponsor actions, pre-award negotiations and award implementations and reporting requirements. This workshop is offered to all Penn State employees: faculty, administrative assistants, staff assistants, post-doc, graduate assistants, but will be most beneficial to new faculty and new research administrators or those interested in having a better understanding of the Universities policies. The program instructors are Jerome Itinger, Director of Grants & Contracts (Health & Human Development), Sue Lavan, Associate Director for Contracts (Earth & Mineral Science) and Vicki Spadaccio, Lead Contracts and Proposal Specialist (Education).
Register online at http://grants.psu.edu and follow the link to "Research Administration Workshop Electronic Registration".
Workshop on Particulate Materials & the Environment
Many knowledge intensive products require the manufacturing of particulate materials, such as ferroelectrics, ceramics, powdered metals, cements, and pharmaceuticals. These materials often have their largest environmental impact during the particulate stage when they are the most soluble. Particulate production commonly involves the consolidation of individual particles. Moreover, these materials often play a pivotal role in new technologies that enable society to achieve greater energy and economic efficiency. Many scientists recognize the unique contributions of these materials but lack the information and analytical tools to consider the economic, social, and environmental impacts of their process and product design decisions. The objective of this workshop is to develop a research agenda to meet this need.
The workshop will address the following key questions:
- What spatial and temporal detail is possible for particulate material balances?
- What are the determinants of particulate material flows?
- What modeling approaches are best suited to represent these determinants?
- How could these models guide process and product design decisions? and
- What material technologies could improve environmental quality?
In addressing these questions, our inquiry will lay the foundations for a conceptual framework to identify and develop a research agenda in this emerging field.
Faculty Contracts & Grants
Materials research accounted for more than $5.5 million in contracts and grants for the month of August! The largest of these contracts and grant (those greater than $200K) are listed below, along with a link to the complete list of contracts and grants. These data are provided by OSPs Strategic Information Management System.
Donnellan, Thomas; 1.6 Structural Enhancement of the Face Gear Idler Pinion, Industry
Fonash, Stephen; NSF National Nanofabrication Users Network - 4th Year, Cornell University
Kim, Seong; Nanoreactor Processes for Manufacturing Oriented Materials, National Science Foundation
Trolier-Mckinstry, Susan; PTCR Films, Industry
Weiss, Paul; Chemically Advanced Nanolithography, U.S. Department of the Air Force
Materials Seminars
Tuesday, September 10, 2002Time: 11:00 AMThursday, September 12, 2002
Location: 108 Wartik Laboratory
Title: Atomically Engineered Active Sites and Environments for Supported Metal Catalyst
Speaker: Dr. Matthew Neurock, University of Virginia
Time: 11:15 AMThursday, September 19, 2002
Location: 22 Deike Bldg
Title: Structure and Stability of Colloidal Pastes
Speaker: Maria Kilfoil, Post Doctoral Fellow, Harvard University
Time: 11:15 AM
Location: 22 Deike Bldg
Title: Ceramics Research in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology
Speaker: Tim Armstrong, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Funding Opportunities
- Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH)
- Coupled Biogeochemical Cycles (CBC)
- Genome-Enabled Environmental Science & Engineering (GEN-EN)
- Instrumentation Development for Environmental Activities (IDEA)
- Materials Use: Science, Engineering, & Society (MUSES)
DOT: Concrete Pavement Technology Program
