Materials Research Laboratory at UCSB: An NSF MRSEC NSF DMR 1121053 Annual Report for the Period March 2015 to February 2016 UCSB MATERIALS RESEARCH LABORATORY: AN NSF MRSEC 2016 ANNUAL REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 2. LIST OF CENTER PARTICIPANTS 4 3. LIST OF CENTER COLLABORATORS 8 4. STRATEGIC PLAN 12 5. RESEARCH ACCOMPLISHMENTS 13 6. EDUCATION AND HUMAN RESOURCES 31 7. POSTDOCTORAL MENTORING PLAN 41 8. CENTER DIVERSITY 42 9. KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER TO INDUSTRY AND OTHER SECTORS 43 10. INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES 44 11. SHARED EXPERIMENTAL AND COMPUTATIONAL FACILITIES 45 12. ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT 49 13. PLACEMENTS OF STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLARS 50 14. LIST OF MRSEC-SUPPORTED PUBLICATIONS 51 LIST OF MRSEC-SUPPORTED PATENTS 76 15. BIOS OF NEW MRSEC INVESTIGATORS 77 16. MRSEC FACULTY AND STUDENTS HONORS AND AWARDS 78 17. HIGHLIGHTS 80 18. STATEMENT OF UNOBLIGATED FUNDS 81 19. BUDGET 82 20. APPENDICES 91 UCSB MATERIALS RESEARCH LABORATORY: AN NSF MRSEC 2016 ANNUAL REPORT 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1a. Vision and Overview The vision of the NSF MRSEC at UCSB: The Materials Research Laboratory (MRL) is to serve the greater US and international materials communities as an innovation engine for new materials. We see the MRL as the “holding company” for all materials-research related activities that go on at UCSB. The success of the MRL is built on foundation philosophies – all MRL programs are synergistic, continually evolving and focus on problems and opportunities of a scope and complexity that require the advantages of scale and interdisciplinarity. All MRL activities are designed to enhance and cultivate interdisciplinary activities through shared office and laboratory space, intra-IRG meetings, co-supervision of students by faculty members from different departments and a numerous seminars during the year and the summer. One of the strengths of the MRL management structure is a flexible and responsive approach to new challenges and opportunities in all aspects of the MRSEC program. This is clearly demonstrated in this annual report with a significant collection of ground-breaking results, new programs and success stories. In addition to the IRG and Seed research that is carried out, and that is described in detail in this report, we are also proud of the numerous activities around start-up companies, other industrial collaborations, and the key role that the Shared Experimental Facilities (SEFs) play. In addition, there is the huge impact that the MRL has on Education and Outreach on the UCSB campus. As a single example, the MRL is involved with over 150 undergraduate internships every year (school year and summer), making it the single largest set of such activities on the UCSB campus. The large numbers of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows that participate in the Education and Outreach activities of the MRL (exceeding 100 this past year) is a testament to how the MRL vision has become so ingrained in the UCSB culture. The number is particularly noteworthy because it bespeaks the strong leverage of funding that is involved. Many of these involved students and post-docs are not in fact, supported directly by the MRSEC grant. A crucially important foundation for the MRL is the commitment to Shared Experimental Facilities. Materials research is highly resource intensive, and a single scientific publication today may involve very intensive instrumentation resource inputs; inputs that simply could not be made available to individual PIs. The UCSB MRSEC SEFs are divided into six different facilities, and two partner facilities, handling literally hundreds of users: from the groups of UCSB faculty PIs (from within and outside the MRSEC), research groups from other universities and colleges, from industrial partners, and from local small-scale start-ups. In fact, it would be accurate to say that some of the local start-ups in the energy and materials spaces (many led by former MRSEC students) would be hard-put to operate in the Santa Barbara areas were it not for the MRSEC SEFs. As the MRL seeks to renew itself in the new round of funding, it is a time of reflection and a time for documenting best practices. New IRGs are being formed, new members being recruited, and the leadership is evolving. However, the core vision of being an enabler of materials research and education, and of being inclusive, diverse, collaborative, and forward thinking will remain unchanged. 1b. Center Accomplishments for Current Reporting Period Points of pride from this past reporting year have been the promotion with tenure of two key MRL junior faculty members: Javier Read de Alaniz who, in addition to research participation, heads up our diversity efforts, and Ania Jayich, who has now agreed to take over as Associate Director during the forthcoming MRSEC competition. Recent honors to MRL faculty include the selection of Susanne Stemmer (IRG-2 co-leader) as a National Security Science and Engineering Fellow. Chris Van de Walle (IRG-2 co-leader) was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and Craig Hawker and Galen Stucky (IRG-3 affiliate) were both elected to the prestigious National Academy of Inventors. Rachel Segalman (Seed) was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. Amongst the faculty, finally Professor Art Gossard, who was closely involved in the prior MRSEC as an IRG Co-leader, received the 1 UCSB MATERIALS RESEARCH LABORATORY: AN NSF MRSEC 2016 ANNUAL REPORT National Medal for Technology and Innovation from President Obama earlier in 2016. Closely aligned with these recognitions is that UCSB’s Graduate Materials Program was ranked No. 2 in the 2016 U.S. News list of American Universities (No. 1 among Public Institutions). The Intellectual Merit contributions of the UCSB MRSEC include another highly productive year, with 65 publications acknowledging the MRSEC grant for direct or partial research support, and another 172 acknowledging the use of MRSEC facilities. The cumulative materials effort at UCSB, in which the MRL plays a central role, can be seen from the impact of these publications which can be measured in many different ways. Over 800 publications have appeared that acknowledge the prior MRSEC grant; these have already attracted over 10,000 citations. The latest (2016) Leiden University citation rankings list UCSB at #4 for Physical Sciences and Engineering, internationally: The MRSEC is a key contributor to the impact. In addition to awards to the senior stakeholders noted above, we are also very proud of our graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and even undergraduate interns. To only list a few: current school- year interns Claire Hebert and Joseph Mann, for example, won NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. They will both attend Stanford in the Fall. Claire also received a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, and Joseph an NDSEG Fellowship. Amongst MRL graduate students, Maxwell Robb received the 2016 Henkel Award for his Ph.D. work (which was related to IRG-1) and Jason Douglas (IRG-3) will soon start an NRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at NIST. Intellectual Merits – Research Highlights The Center is organized into three IRGs and a dynamic and successful seed program. These IRGs include IRG-1: Bio-Inspired Wet Adhesion which focuses on synthetic materials inspired by the key building blocks of natural marine adhesives – catechol units and coacervate domains – coupled with developing quantitative mechanical tests for understanding these natural systems at unprecedented levels. The grand challenge continues to be a fundamental understanding of adhesion in wet and hostile environments allowing the translation to synthetic systems with high performance. The grand challenge of IRG-2: Correlated Electronics is the development of the scientific foundation of new technologies based on the unique transport properties of complex oxide heterostructures. A detailed understanding of the electrical and optical properties of oxide heterostructures, including the roles of strain, defects, interface polar discontinuities and band alignments, is a major focus of this multi-disciplinary program. IRG-3: Robust Biphasic Materials has focused on bulk thermoelectric and magnetic materials that display interfacial phenomena between the two designer phases that are spontaneously created within the material. The grand challenge in IRG-3 is to develop the necessary degrees of control through appropriate processing, which allows desired microstructures of functional materials to be developed. Finally, multiple seed projects have now been awarded that have allowed new participants to be brought into the MRSEC and address challenging new problems, including developing new, state-of-the-art techniques to probe important questions that enable materials advances. In addition to the three IRGs, the UCSB MRSEC is proud of its Seed Program. This past year, as the funding cycle comes to a close, funding in support of a Super Seed was awarded to Rachel Segalman to allow for the continuation and expansion of her then-current Seed project as noted in the cumulative list presented below. PI or PIs Title Duration Ania Jayich Nanoscale Scanned Probe Imaging of Charge and 1/1/12 to 6/20/14 Spin at Semiconductor Surfaces and Interfaces Javier Read de Alaniz Atom and Energy Efficient Approach to Polymers 1/1/12 to 6/20/14 with Tunable Reactivity and Properties* Omar Saleh and Active Gels 1/1/12 to 6/20/14 Deborah Fygenson 2 UCSB MATERIALS RESEARCH LABORATORY: AN NSF MRSEC 2016 ANNUAL REPORT Martin Moskovits and Developing