California State University, Northridge - Princeton MRSEC

Fostering Innovation and Education in Computational Materials Science

This PREM is a partnership between the multidisciplinary W. M. Keck Computational Materials Theory Center at California State University Northridge, a Hispanic-serving institution, and the Princeton Center for Complex Materials, the NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Princeton University.

Objectives:

  1. to initiate and expand collaborations on research and education for emergent materials

  2. to broaden participation in materials research and education through recruitment, retention and outreach programs involving high school students and teachers, undergraduate and graduate students

  3. to leverage and harness the intellectual power and research infrastructure to address grand challenges in emergent materials research

  4. to promote accessibility of multidisciplinary cutting-edge research and education experience to underrepresented groups

  5. to stimulate and develop strong industrial-university-national laboratory partnerships in materials research

Research:

This PREM strives to solve fundamental problems in emergent materials that have vital scientific and technological importance as well as economical and societal impacts. A multidisciplinary team with coordinated and complementary skills in theory, computation and experiment is assembled into three interdisciplinary groups (IRGs).

 

NSF Logo

Award #1205734

2012 - 2019
California State University - Northridge
Princeton University
Princeton MRSEC
IRG 1

Interfacial Charge Transfer and Separation in Excitonic Photovoltaics

We will tackle a grand challenge in solar energy conversion – charge transfer and separation at donor/acceptor interfaces, which is the bottleneck for excitonic solar cells. A firstprinciples based theoretical framework will be developed to address fundamental problems at the organic/organic and organic/inorganic interfaces.
IRG 2

Quantum Phenomena in Topological Materials

We will explore intriguing competitions among electron interaction, nontrivial band structure and random disorder in topological materials. We will investigate fundamental problems associated with correlated electron systems and elucidate novel physical phenomena emerging in these complex materials, which are crucial for technological advances in magneto-electronics, spintronic devices as well as topological quantum computing.
IRG 3

Spintronics in Multifunctional Devices

We will study electronic structure and spin transport of multifunctional nano-systems consisting of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric tunnel junctions based on multiferroics and topological insulator based materials. The coupling between different degrees of freedom and its sensitivity to interfacial structure will give rise to a wealth of exciting phenomena, providing unprecedented access to emerging multi-functionalities of future spintronic devices.

People