Monday, October 14, 2002Volume 2, Issue 15
MRI Faculty Spotlight
Peter Heaney studies materials not to learn how to synthesize them or improve their properties, as most materials scientists do. His materials were synthesized billions of years ago by processes within the earth's crust. Heaney is a geochemist studying minerals in exquisite detail to learn how they came to be. His current research involves characterizing carbonados - porous, polycrystalline diamonds containing 100 nm-200 mm grains. While the origin of carbonados is controversial, most geologists agree that they were not formed by the same processes that produce gem quality (kimberlitic) diamonds.
For the full story go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu//articles/PeterHeaney/
Seed Grant Status Report
This week we introduce a new feature in eMaterials, Seed Grant Status Reports. MRI and the MRSEC recently combined resources to better fund seed grants in materials. Below Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Craig Grimes reviews his seed grant project on the development of plant-based sensors.
It is known that plants are exceptionally sensitive to chemical stimuli in air, water or soil and dynamically respond to that stimuli by releasing target volatiles communicating information to surrounding plants. Under Seed Grant auspices, we seek to determine if such volatile signatures can be detected using current microsensor technology, or at least something more practical to apply outside the laboratory than a mass spectrometer/gas chromatograph. If so, making use of their large surface areas and round-the-clock monitoring capabilities, the next question we seek to answer is can we discover plants or engineer plants to use as reporters of incidents such as chemical or biological releases, indicators for precision agriculture enabling pesticide application only where the bugs are, land mine detection, etc. This summary reports on our progress towards answering these questions over the past six months.
Contracts & Grants
Materials research accounted for more than $12.6 million in contracts and grants for the month of 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.
Harris, Karl A; Management of the Electro Optics Center, U.S. Department of the Navy
Macdonald, Digby D; Urquidi-Macdonald, Mirna; The Oxidation of Zircaloy Fuel Cladding in Water-Cooled Nuclear Reactors, U.S. Department of Energy
Pantano, Carlo G; Materials for Optical Technologies, Lehigh University
Snyder, Alan J; Electroactive Polymers for Biomedical Application, Industry
Snyder, David W; Everson, William J; Advanced Semi-Insulating Silicon Carbide Substrate Technology, U.S. Department of the Navy
Tressler, Richard E; Development of ITM Oxygen Technology for Integration in IGCC and Other Advanced Power Generation Systems, Industry
Materials Seminars
Thursday, October 17, 2002Time: 11:15 AMFriday, October 18, 2002
Location: 22 Deike Bldg
Title: Peapod Nanomaterials
Speaker: David Luzzi, Professor of Material Science, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 11:15 AMThursday, October 24, 2002
Location: 108 Wartik Laboratory
Title: A Window into Complexity: Simple Examples of Self-Organizin System
Speaker: Dr. Julio M. Ottino, Northwestern University
Time: 11:15 AMThursday, October 31, 2002
Location: 22 Deike Bldg
Title: Modeling Electrodeposition with a Phase-Field Approach
Speaker: William Boettinger, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Time: 11:15 AM
Location: 22 Deike Bldg
Title: Nanoscale Materials Science and Engineering down to the Single Molecule Level
Speaker: Mark Hersham, Asst. Professor of MATSE, Northwestern University
For a complete list of upcoming materials-related seminars go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/seminars.asp
Funding Opportunities
NSF: Major Research Instrumentation Limited submission; internal PSU competition (see dept/college for details/deadlines). For more information go to: http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf01171
