Center Research Summary

The CCMR currently supports three Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) and a number of smaller 'seed' research groups through an NSF MRSEC grant and Cornell University support. Each group brings researchers from a variety of different departments together to work on an outstanding interdisciplinary problem in materials research and development. The research teams are chosen through periodic competitions which include external review by international experts in the field. Faculty participants are drawn from the more than 100 faculty in the CCMR. These faculty span 12 departments and 4 colleges at Cornell. In addition, the research teams are strengthened by collaborations with academic and industrial researchers from around the world.

The Seed research program is devoted to the exploration of new ideas and high risk projects. Seed projects are funded for a maximum of two years. After this period, the project must transition to other support. Seed projects are not renewable.

If you have any questions about our research, please contact the IRG leaders or Seed faculty directly.

Top :: Complex Electronic Materials :: Mechanisms, Materials, and Devices for Spin Manipulation :: Atomic Membranes :: Seeds

Controlling Complex Electronic Materials

IRG Senior Participants:
Darrell Schlom (MatSci, co-leader), Kyle Shen (Phys, co-leader), Joel Brock (ApplPhys), J. C. Séamus Davis (Phys), Craig Fennie (ApplPhys), Eun-Ah Kim (Phys), Andrew Millis (Phys, Columbia Univ.), David Muller (ApplPhys)
Collaborators: R. Hennig (MatSci, Cornell), S. A. Kivelson (Stanford Univ.), M. Lawler (SUNY Binghamton), A. P. Mackenzie (St. Andrews, UK), J. Mannhart (Augsburg, Germany), P. Schiffer (Penn State), J. Schubert (Research Centre Jülich, Germany), R. Uecker (Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth, Germany)

The theme of our research is to understand and control complex electronic materials in which quantum many-body interactions can produce spectacular electronic and magnetic properties, such as colossal magnetoresistance, giant thermoelectric power, and high-temperature superconductivity. Starting from materials that are reasonably well described by current theory, we systematically perturb the electronic structure of the targeted materials through experimentally-accessible changes in electron overlap or carrier density, then use the observed changes in materials properties to drive advances in electronic structure theory. The combination of insights from theory and experiment will allow us to optimize the physical properties we are attempting to enhance, allowing us to “close the loop” between growth, experiment, and theory. Our long-term goal is to develop a general approach to optimizing properties in a wide range of materials, including high-temperature superconductors.

E-mail IRG leaders: Darrell Schlom and Kyle Shen

Mechanisms, Materials, and Devices for Spin Manipulation

IRG Senior Participants:
Dan Ralph (Phys, co-leader), Eun-Ah Kim (Phys, co-leader), Sunil Bhave (ElecE), Robert Buhrman (ApplPhys), Craig Fennie (ApplPhys), David Muller (ApplPhys), Farhan Rana (ElecE)
Collaborators: G. Finocchio (University of Messina, Italy), I. R. Fisher (Stanford), J. A. Katine, (Hitachi Global Storage Tech.), N. P. Ong (Princeton), M. D. Stiles (NIST, Gaithersburg), J. Z. Sun (IBM, Yorktown Heights), Y. Suzuki (Osaka Univ., Japan), R. van Dover (MatSci, Cornell), A. Yazdani (Princeton)

The goal of our research is to understand, optimize, and develop applications of new methods for manipulating electron spins, in both ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic materials. The group is pursuing the materials innovations necessary for the control of ferromagnetic dynamics using spin-transfer torque, developing a new class of coherent, frequency-tunable microwave sources, investigating new mechanisms for current-controlled spin dynamics within antiferromagnets and ferromagnet/antiferromagnet devices, and studying spin transport and spin torque in the surface state of topological insulators. Advances in spin control may enable a variety of applications, including nonvolatile magnetic random access memories capable of being scaled to very high densities.

E-mail IRG leaders: Eun-Ah Kim and Dan Ralph

Atomic Membranes

IRG Senior Participants:
Jiwoong Park (Chem, co-leader), Michael Spencer (ElecE, co-leader), Harold Craighead (ApplPhys), Richard Hennig (MatSci), Paul McEuen (Phys), David Muller (ApplPhys), Jeevak Parpia (Phys), Farhan Rana (ElecE)
Collaborators: A. P. Alivisatos (UC Berkeley), J. C. Davis (Cornell), M. Deshmukh (TIFR, India), S. Gruner (Cornell), D. Jena (Notre Dame), G. Koley (Univ. of South Carolina), S. Krylov (Tel Aviv Univ., Israel), A. Lal (Cornell), J. Robinson (Naval Research Lab), J. Saunders, A. Casey (Royal Holloway, UK), K. Shen (Cornell), M. Sillanpaa, P. Hakonen (Helsinki Univ., Finland), G. Tompa (SMI Corp), M. Vengalattore (Cornell), A. Woll (CHESS)

Atomic membranes are a new class of two-dimensional, free-standing materials only one atom thick yet mechanically robust, chemically stable, and virtually impermeable. The prototype atomic membrane is graphene, a honeycomb lattice entirely made of carbon atoms, but other emerging systems such as the III-V boron nitride (BN) materials offer exciting new properties. Since our team reported (along with the Geim group) the first suspended atomic membranes in 2007, progress in the field has been stunning. Applications loom in almost every technological sector from electronics to chemical passivation. In particular, atomic membranes will lead to novel mechanical and window devices at a large, technologically-relevant scale, highly tunable and ultrasensitive nano-electromechanical devices for controlling and sensing nanometer scale objects, and outstanding window materials for novel x-ray and TEM studies. Our group is working to address the major materials challenges facing the realization of these applications.

E-mail IRG leaders: Michael Spencer and Jiwoong Park

Seed Projects - Exploratory Research

The IRG research projects are augmented by seed projects in materials research. At present there are three seed projects in the CCMR funded through a combination of NSF and Cornell University resources.

Biomimetic Design of Synthetic Lubricants
Larry Bonassar (BME/MAE), Delphine Gourdon (MatSci), David Putnam (BME/CBE)
Aqueous lubricants, such as mucins enable a wide array of lubricating behaviors in nature. A specific mucin known as lubricin is largely responsible for the extraordinary frictional properties of articular cartilage: cartilage-on-cartilage interfaces are known to have friction coefficients as low as 0.001, significantly lower than either ice-on-ice or teflon-on-teflon. This remarkable lubricating ability arises from the structure of lubricin, which contains a linear peptide domain that regulates adhesion of the molecule to surfaces and a brush-like, hydrophilic, oligosaccharide-bearing domain that controls the lubrication. The goal of this study is to use the structure of lubricin as a template for the biomimetic design of synthetic lubricants with distinct adhesive and lubricating domains by 1) understanding the mechanism by which lubricin binds to biological tissue such as fibronectin; 2) synthesize a library of biomimetic lubricants with distinct binding and lubricating domains; and 3) screening this library for binding and lubricating ability. These lubricants may have wide ranging medical applications from arthritis treatment to contact lens lubrication in addition to potential for lubricating traditional bearings. Such lubricants would have a potential advantage over oil-based lubricants in their high degree of lubrication as well as a more sustainable, environmentally friendly path to synthesis and disposal.

Crystalline and Amorphous Nanomaterials in Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis
Lara Estroff (MatSci) and Claudia Fischbach-Teschl (BME).
Metastatic bone disease is a frequent cause of morbidity in patients with advanced breast cancer. Nanostructural characteristics of hydroxyapatite (Ca₁₀ (PO₄)₆(OH)₂) such as crystallinity, chemical composition, size, and aspect ratio are important for normal bone functions of the hydroxyapatite (HA) crystals. We hypothesize that the nanostructure of the biomineralized bone matrix, a composite structure of collagen fibers reinforced with nano-scale crystals of hydroxyapatite (Ca₁₀ (PO₄)₆(OH)₂), regulates bone metastasis by controlling breast cancer cell behavior. To address this hypothesis, we will integrate a 3-D polymeric scaffold based human metastasis model and synthetic hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles of systematically varying composition and structure and study the functional relationships between the nano-scale characteristics of HA, mammary tumor cell behavior, and osteolytic bone metastasis.

Development of Nanometer-separation Double-tip Spectroscopic Imaging STM
Amit Lal (ECE), Eun-Ah Kim (Physics), Séamus Davis (Physics), Robert Gilmour (Biomedical Sciences)
Double-tip STM systems that would enable trans-conductance measurements over nanometer distances have been proposed for more than a decade as a next generation tool for basic research but the engineering challenges have so far prevented implementation. We propose to develop what will be the world’s first nanometer separation double-tip spectroscopic imaging STM system based on the combination of our expertise in SI-STM, nanofabrication and micro-engineering and theory of complex electronic matter and to explore its capabilities and limitations and ultimately to use it to pioneer new research directions including imaging the single electron Greens function, to determine the scattering matrix at impurity atoms, and to image the inelastic processes limiting electronic mean free path in modern complex electronic matter materials, and ultimately unravel the nature of electronic excitations in these unconventional materials. The device also will be used to image, with unprecedented spatial resolution, fundamental biological processes, including the electrical and structural events underlying ion channel dynamics in excitable cells.