Chemistry (CHE/MPS) Division Investment in Nanoscience

The Chemistry Division of NSF's Mathematical and Physicals Sciences (MPS) Directorate invests about $18 million per year in projects involving the synthesis or characterization of nanostructures and the development of methods for application to nanoscience. These activities span all programmatic areas of the division and range from theoretical investigations to advanced applications.

Work on theory of atomic and molecular clusters includes their dynamic properties, their chaotic and ergotic behavior, the relationship between cluster topography and potential energy surfaces, and electron correlation calculations for clusters composed of three- and four-valence electron atoms. Synthetic efforts include work on chemical vapor deposition, sol-gel chemistry, micromachining, patterned metallization, and patterned, catalyzed polymerization. Development work on techniques and methods for characterizing nanostructures is being carried out in near-field optical spectroscopy, atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopy, and laser microprobe techniques. The following are examples of active nanoscience research projects funded by NSF's Chemistry Division:

• Andrew Hamilton (University of Pittsburgh)
  control of molecular self-assembly through hydrogen bonding

• David Walba (University of Colorado at Boulder)
  synthesis and characterization of ferroelectric liquid crystals

• Eileen Spain (Occidental College)
  deposition of inorganic thin films on chemically modified surfaces by pulsed laser evaporation

• George Whitesides (Harvard University)
  molecular self-assembly based on networks of hydrogen bonds

• Ingrid Fritsch (University of Arkansas)
  fabrication, characterization, and stability of organic thin films suspended across microfabricated structures

• Richard McCullogh (Carnegie Mellon University)
  development of self-assembling conducting oligomers and polymer superstructures

• Joseph Lauher and Frank Fowle (SUNY at Stony Brook)
  strategies for the preparation of designed supramolecular structures