Sensing processes are simply a material’s response to some stimulus. There are many conventional ways to tailor a material’s transduction response including nanostructuring to enhance surface effects, chemical functionalization for specificity, optical mode engineering to enhance optical cross-section and/or tune frequency response, or system design to incorporate multi-functionality. In this program, we are interested in basic research aimed at drastic or fundamental alterations of a material’s response to stimuli. For instance, introducing quantum mechanical coupling (interaction) in material design is expected to improve material transduction and related sensing functionality through increased sensitivity and improved power efficiency. Utilization of quantum-mechanical interactions as a mode of materials design can take various forms. Coupling of material excitations (e.g., excitons, phonons, vibrations) to optical cavity modes has yielded exciton control, polariton formation and condensation, and opto-mechanical sensors operating in the quantum squeezed regime. Tailored design of molecular excitonic and spin transitions has advanced the interrogation of protein structure and function, and the examination of molecular-cavity optomechanical systems allows one to drive nonlinear population of vibrational excitations, manipulate molecular dephasing, and influence chemical behavior.
Research Concentration Areas
- Molecular design resulting in materials with tailored optical, electronic, magnetic, chemical or dynamic response.
- Integrating disparate materials (optical, chemical, magnetic, etc.) for a resulting system response otherwise unobtainable.
- Altering fundamental thermal, electrostatic or dynamic response of a material system.
- Understanding and manipulating the roles of phonons in phase transitions, electrostatic response and energy transport.
- Developing an understanding of quantum mechanical coupling for directing energy flow and redistribution.
- Materials design for tailoring electron-phonon interactions.
- Theoretical approaches to guide the discovery or design of unique materials transduction processes.
- Designing unique optical modes, interrogation, implementation and integration.
Research Challenges and Opportunities
- Can modal coupling (e.g., between optical cavity and phonon) alter fundamental materials properties (e.g., phase transformation energy, rate, phase equilibrium, superconductivity) and what would be the most impactful properties or materials systems to examine?
- Would material control through modal coupling offer new opportunities in manufacturing (e.g., stabilize a material against thermal breakdown), lowering SWAP-C, energy generation/storage, chemical synthesis, provide defect tolerance (e.g., delocalized cavity modes extending carrier wave wave-functions over large distances to side-step defects)?
- Where do classical analytical treatments fail? Are the observations truly quantum effects?
- Can manipulation of phonon dispersion and propagation be used to affect thermal distributions in a unique and useful way?
- Are there approaches to modulate any coupling-induced effects to enable adaptable materials?
- What quantum or cavity-induced effects persist at room temperature? Which require low temperature?
- Can these new interactions be leveraged for chemistry (value-added synthesis, pollutant or toxin remediation, new synthetic routes or synthesis of otherwise challenging chemistries)?
- Are new materials characterization techniques needed? Are there opportunities to design new characterization techniques? These could be optical, dynamic, electrochemical, magnetic, electronic.
How to Submit
For detailed application and submission information for this research topic, please refer to our broad agency announcement (BAA) No. N0001425SB001.
Contracts: All white papers and full proposals for contracts must be submitted through FedConnect; instructions are included in the BAA.
Grants: All white papers for grants must be submitted through FedConnect, and full proposals for grants must be submitted through grants.gov; instructions are included in the BAA.