NW IMPACT

News in Brief

UW leads new NSF Science and Technology Center on optoelectronic and quantum technologies
On September 9, 2021, the National Science Foundation announced it will fund a new Science and Technology Center called the Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand, or IMOD. The director is UW Prof. David Ginger, who is a founding co-director of NW IMPACT and a joint appointment with PNNL. Prof Kai-Mei Fu, who is also a joint appointment with PNNL, is IMOD's associate director of quantum workforce development. IMOD is comprised of eleven academic institutions as well as a several educational, commercial, and national laboratory organizations, including PNNL. News Release

PNNL's Marcel Baer wins DOE Early Career Award in Biomolecular Materials program
The U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program announced awardees from the 2021 competition, which included Dr. Marcel Baer from PNNL. His proposal was entitled "Computationally Driven Design and Synthesis for Electron Transfer Materials based on Non-natural Polymers". Dr. Baer also contributes to the DOE BES Biomolecular Materials program in a collaborative UW/PNNL project. News release

Magnetic skyrmions in monolayer CrI₃
In research published July 13, 2021 in JACS Au, UW Professors Xiaosong Li and Xiaodong Xu and along with PNNL staff scientist Peter Sushko described theoretical studies on a 2-dimensional material where magnetic skyrmionic states are controlled by the atomic level positioning of dopant ions. Professors Li and Xu are both Joint Appointees with PNNL associated with NW IMPACT, and the collaboration was supported by a NW IMPACT seed project.

UW graduate student whose thesis research was carried out at PNNL wins MRS award
The on-line spring meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS), held April 17 to 23, 2021, honored several scientists for their materials research conducted as graduate students. UW's Guomin Zhu was one of four who were honored at the gold level.

UW and PNNL contribute materials science expertise to C2QA, a national Quantum Information Center
On August 26th, 2020, DOE announced awards for five new national Quantum Information Centers. Scientists at UW and PNNL are contributing expertise in the quantum properties of defects in crystals to one of them, the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, C2QA, led by Brookhaven National Laboratory.

NW IMPACT Co-director James De Yoreo receives Distinguished Scientist Fellow Award
The U.S. Department of Energy announced the 2020 Distinguished Scientist Fellow awards on July 22, 2020. James De Yoreo was one of three recipients. He will receive one million dollars in funding for research of his choice. News release.

NW IMPACT collaborative team receives ARO funding for biomimetic growth of plasmonic nanostructures
A collaborative team of researchers from the PNNL and UW has been awarded a three year grant from the Army Research Office (ARO), with the aim of using specialized biomimetic polymers to control the formation of plasmonic nanostructures. UW announced this award on August 1, 2018. The ARO research grant will elucidate the more fundamental principles by which peptoids control the growth and morphology of inorganic materials, inspired by the way biominerals from in nature. The formation of this collaborative team was facilitated by NW IMPACT. The research team includes PNNL's Chun-Long Chen, chair of the UW Chemical Engineering Department Jim Pfaendtner, and founding co-director of NW IMPACT, Jim De Yoreo.

NW IMPACT Co-director David Ginger elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences
The election of Prof. David S. Ginger, founding co-director of NW IMPACT, to the Washington State Academy of Sciences was announced was announced July 13, 2018. He has been recognized for his pioneering work on "the application of scanning probe and multimodal microscopy to study the optoelectronic properties of thin film semiconductor materials including organic semiconductors, quantum dots, and halide perovskites." News Release

NW IMPACT team leads new Energy Frontier Research Center
Funding to establish the Center for the Science of Synthesis Across Scales (CSSAS) was announced on June 29, 2018 by the U.S. Department of Energy as an Energy Frontier Research Center, led by UW. Jim De Yoreo of PNNL, a founding director of NW IMPACT, is the deputy director. The collaborative effort leading to CSSAS was enabled by NW IMPACT. News Release The Center is a close collaboration of UW, PNNL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of California San Diego, and the University of Chicago.

Quantum Materials are the focus of a new Energy Frontier Research Center
Xiaodong Xu leads the UW contribution to a new Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) entitled Programmable Quantum Materials. The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding to establish this EFRC, led by Columbia University, on June 29, 2018.

NW IMPACT selects two proposal teams for initial funding
Following a competitive proposal call for collaborative research proposals, NW IMPACT awarded funding for two initial projects in April 2018. These were "Engineering Sequence-Defined Polymers for Controlled Formation of Hybrid Materials", by Chun-Long Chen (PNNL) and Francois Baneyx (UW); and "New Quantum Phenomena by Combining 2D Materials with Complex Oxides." Xiaodong Xu (UW) and Scott Chambers (PNNL).

NW IMPACT formally launched in January 2018
The Northwest Institute for Materials Physics, Chemistry, and Technology (NW IMPACT) was formally launched during a ceremony Jan. 31, 2018 at the PNNL campus in Richland, Washington. News Release The Institute is a joint research collaboration of the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Washington, initiated by these institutions to facilitate collaborative teams doing research in materials science and technology.