Monday, October 17, 2005Volume 5, Issue 6
Director's Message
Materials Day 2006
Materials Day at Penn State
April 10 - April 11, 2006
Penn Stater Conference Center and Hotel
Please mark your calendars and plan to attend and participate in this campus-wide event.
MRI Staff Awards
The Materials Research Institute is now seeking nominations for the MRI Staff Awards. This is an excellent opportunity to recognize individuals who have provided the Penn State materials community with exemplary service. I also encourage you to discuss potential candidates for this award with students and other researchers who interact with the MRI staff. Eligible candidates include all staff that support materials research initiatives at Penn State. Examples are: the MRI Technical and Clerical Staff in the Materials Characterization Lab, Nanofabrication Facility, and the MRI and MRL Bldgs, as well as other staff in similar roles for departments and centers. Please note that three support letters are needed in addition to the attached nomination form. The deadline to return your nomination form is November 26th. Please take the time to nominate a colleague for one of these special awards. If you have questions regarding the criteria please feel free to contact Donna Lucas.
The nomination form can be found at:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v05i06/awards.pdf
Faculty Spotlight: An Interview with Arthur Motta
eMaterials asks: Why do we fear nuclear power? Q&A with Arthur Motta, professor of nuclear engineering and materials science and engineering
Spotlight on New Faculty
Just arrived from UCLA, Tony Huang, the James Henderson Assistant Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, has some new ideas about developing nanobiosensors that can detect single molecules and single point mutations.
Research Spotlights
- A man-made material with unusual properties, metamaterials are going to improve your cell phone reception, sharpen diagnostic imaging, and, maybe, see beyond the wavelength of light. Visiting Japanese Scientist Studies New Materials
- In a rush to publish? Don't forget to protect your IP. See Researchers Need to Protect Intellectual Property
- A Fracture in the Glass Community - Sharp words are exchanged at a recent meeting of top international glass scientists.
- The Valley of Death is where good research goes to die. A workshop at Penn State this summer showed how to cross to the other side.
- Two MRI faculty are among Nano Letters most frequently accessed authors. See Papers by Penn State Nano Researchers Among Top 20 Most Read
- Marvin L. Cohen talks about Einstein's Annus Mirabilis in the Taylor Lectures.
- MS&T Conference - It's the material world's biggest get together. MRI was in Pittsburgh with a camera.
- You know Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking. Get to know Robert Newnham, another winner of the coveted Benjamin Franklin Medal.
Promote your Research or Sign Up to be an Expert
Do you have a book coming out or a paper soon to be published in a peer-reviewed journal? Are you doing exciting research that could make a lively feature story? The Materials Research Institute would like to know about it. We can promote your work to a wide range of media through news releases and feature articles.
If you are a recognized expert in your field and willing to be quoted by the press, please send us an e-mail with your field of expertise (examples: hydrogen sensors; organic thin films; MEMS) and contact information. We will pass along requests for quotes or interviews from journalists who need your expertise; you won't be contacted directly. Contact Walt Mills at phone 865-0285
MRS Entrepreneurship Challenge
Deadline Extended -- Poster Enclosed!
A competition designed to help materials researchers develop the entrepreneurial skills that get ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace.
NOTE--The deadline to register for the Entrepreneurship Challenge has been extended to December 15.
Please help us promote this educational program AND introduce your researchers to what it takes to turn a good idea into a marketable opportunity. To aid in your promotional efforts, print a copy of the Entrepreneurship Challenge Poster and post it in a high-traffic location within your department. And, of course, encourage your researchers to register for the competition! Again, the registration deadline is December 15, so don't delay.
For more information about the Challenge, including background information, instructions and tools necessary to create the entry presentation by the post-mark deadline of January 23, 2006, stop by the MRS Entrepreneurship Challenge Information Session at the 2005 MRS Fall Meeting on Monday, November 28 at 8PM in the Sheraton Boston Hotel, or visit the Web site at http://www.mrs.org/entrepreneur/
And don't forget....the grand prize is $3000 -- PLUS the top three teams will each additionally receive travel funding of up to $3000 so that they can present their entries at the 2006 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco.
Thank you for your support!
The 2nd Symposium on Infrared Materials and Technologies
November 21 and 22, 2005The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel
The infrared spectral region is important for a broad range of applications including fiber-optic and free-space communications, remote sensing, laser radar, missile countermeasures, meteorology, biomedical imaging, surgery, and basic spectroscopy. In addition, recent advances in sources, modulators, and detectors have made infrared technology development an extremely active area of research and development.
The purpose of this symposium is to bring together leading researchers in academia, industry, and government agencies interested in infrared materials and technologies to assess the state-of-the-art in this field, and to identify the grand challenges in both the fundamental science and at device and systems levels that need to be addressed in the coming years.
Penn State Faculty Registration: $125.00
Penn State Student Registration: Fee waived (includes breaks, lunch and materials)
Tentative Agenda: http://www.mri.psu.edu/conferences/simt/agenda.asp
Contracts and Grants
Materials research accounted for more than $16.4 million in contracts and grants for the months of August and September! The largest of these contracts and grants (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.
Adair, James H; Wolfe, Douglas E.; Synthesis of NanoTabular Particulates for IR obscuration, National Science Foundation
Brenizer, JR., Jack S; Vincenti, John R; Innovations and Enhancements for a Consortium of BIG-10 University Research and Training Reactors, U.S. Department of Energy
Cook, Robert B; Institute for Manufacturing and Sustainment Technologies, U.S. Department of the Navy
Dillon, Gregory P; Stiver, Donald H; Formable Aligned Carbon Tow (FACT) Process, Industry
Eden, Timothy J; Advanced Technologies for Printed Wiring Board Fabrication, U.S. Department of the Navy
Eklund, Peter C; 10-100 ueV multichopper spectrometer, U.S. Department of Energy
Friedman, Lawrence; Muhlstein, Christopher L; Electronanoindentation: Fundamental investigations and applications to piezoelectric thin films, National Science Foundation
Grimes, Craig A; Sensors: Highly-ordered Nanotube-array Gas Sensors, National Science Foundation
Mallouk, Thomas E; Chan, Moses H; Crespi, Vincent H; Weiss, Paul S; MRSEC: Center for Molecular Nanofabrication and Devices, National Science Foundation
Mallouk, Thomas E; Redwing, Joan M; Photoelectrochemistry of Semiconductor Nanowire Arrays, U.S. Department of Energy
Mueller, Karl T; Garrison, Barbara J; Mitra, Prasenjit; Giles, Clyde L; Kubicki, James D; Cyberinfrastructure and research facilites: developing collaboratory tools to facilitate multi-disciplinary multi scale research in environmental molecular sciences, National Science Foundation
Puri, Virendra M; Optimization of Plate Heat Exchangers to Minimize Fouling, Enhance Energy Efficiency, and Reduce Water Usage, California Institute for Energy Efficiency
Runt, James P; Simultaneous measurement of thermal and relazation properties for nanodevice reliability, U.S. Department of Commerce
Trolier-Mckinstry, Susan E; Randall, Clive A; Thin Layer Multilayer Capacitors, Industry
Wang, Kon-Well; Hofmann, Heath F; SST: Multifunctional Adaptive Piezoelectric Sensory for Structural Damage Detection, National Science Foundation
Ziegler, Gregory R; Runt, James P; Nanoscale Self Assembly of Starch: Phase Relations, Formation and Structure, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Funding Opportunities
- DARPA - Defense Sciences Research and Technology - white papers recommended - Deadline: 2/7/2006
- DOD - Low-Temperature Behavior of Materials (CRREL-51) - BAA- no deadline
- DOD - Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites for Infrastructure Applications (CERL-3) - BAA- no deadline
- NSF - Active Nanostructures and Nanosystems (ANN) - limited PSU submissions - Deadline: 11/29/2005
- NSF - Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) - Deadline: 12/12/2005
- MISC - Semiconductor Research Corporation: Cross-disciplinary Semiconductor Research (CSR) - (1) Non-charge-based logic/memory devices and (2) Extremely scaled interconnect technologies - Deadline: 9/23/2005
Materials Seminars
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Noon to 1:00PM - 102 Kern Graduate Building
"From College to a Business Career guided by an Entrepreneurial Spirit"
Bob Pozgar, Alumni Fellow, Entrepreneur, and President and CEO of Liberty Technologies Unlimited
Thursday, October 20, 2005
11:35 AM - 135 Reber Building
"Fluctuation Electron Microscopy: Finding Order in Disorder with Nanodiffraction"
Paul Voyles, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison
Series - MatSE 590
Thursday, October 27, 2005
11:30 AM - 111 Wartik Laboratory
"Surface Chemistry and Tribology of MEMS"
Roya Maboudian, University of California @ Berkeley
Series - Department of Chemical Engineering
11:35 AM - 135 Reber Building
"Dipolar Field Effects in Organic Semiconductor Devices: Transistor Tunability and Chemical Sensitivity"
Howard Katz, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Joint Appointment, Dept. of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University
Series - MatSE 590
Thursday, November 03, 2005
11:35 AM - 135 Reber Building
"A New View of Internal Oxidation"
John Morral, Professor & Chair, Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Ohio State University
Series - MatSE 590
