Dr. Bong will receive $20,000 in cost share from IMR to supplement his project Synthesis of amphiphilic core-shell latex emulsions from soy proteins and delivery of corrosion inhibitors and biocides for coatings application, an externally sponsored research project funded by an industry partner. 

The IMR Industry Challenge Grants program was created to help strengthen new collaborations in materials-allied research between OSU researchers and private industry partners, which will lead to major external proposal development. These grants provide one-to-one matching funds up to $20,000 per year to fund graduate students or postdoctoral researchers working on these collaborative research projects.

 Industry Challenge Grants have a rolling deadline – applications are accepted at any time.  Visit the IMR website for more information and the full Request for Proposals.

Dr. John Carlin, Research Scientist and IMR Member of Technical Staff, provided the distinguished group with an overview of the photovoltaics research taking place at Ohio State and the broad research capabilities of OSU’s Nanotech West Laboratory. Dr. Carlin was joined by Dr. Yun Wu, a Postdoctoral Researcher at OSU’s NSEC program, who is originally from Hubei Province.

During their visit to Ohio, the Hubei group signed a memorandum of agreement with the Ohio Department of Agriculture pledging to continue a long-standing alliance between Ohio and Hubei Province in promoting and advancing their agriculture industries.

IMR’s Research Enhancement Program provides different funding mechanisms to support novel research at The Ohio State University. Five new research projects were awarded by the IMR in June 2009, for a total investment of $225,000. Three IMRG research projects also received a second year of funding from IMR for an additional $130,000 in direct research support from IMR.

2009 IMRG Research Projects: New Research

Metamaterials with Smart Reconfiguration for Broadband RF Antennas
Lead: Marcelo Dapino, Mechanical Engineering; Co-Applicants: Suresh Babu, Industrial Systems Engineering; John Volakis, Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Economical Platforms for FET-based Protein Detection to Support Sensor Clinical Translation
Lead: Stephen C. Lee, Biomedical Engineering; Co-Applicant: Paul Berger, Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Use of Electrospun Biomaterials as Carriers of Bone Marrow Derived Stem/Progenitor Cells to Stimulate
Lead: Nicanor I. Moldovan, Internal Medicine; Co-Applicant: John J. Lannuti, Materials Science and Engineering.

Exploring Electrically Tunable Magnetism in Gd-doped Nitride Quantum Structures
Lead: Roberto C. Myers; Materials Science and Engineering & Electrical Computer Engineering; Co-Applicants: Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, Physics; Michael Mills, Materials Science and Engineering.

Synthesis of III-V Semiconductor Nanowire Heterostructures Using Metalorganic Chemical Vapor
Lead: Fengyuan Yang, Physics; Co-Applicants: Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, Physics; Roberto C. Myers, Materials Science and Engineering & Electrical and Computer Engineering

2009 IMRG Renewals

IMR also provided $130,000 in direct funding to support the second year of these successful IMRG research projects:

Experimental and Computational Study of ALD-grown Dielectrics on III-Nitrides
Lead: Siddharth Rajan, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering; Co-Applicant: Wolfgang Windl, Materials Science and Engineering

IMRG Research Award to Supplement Center for Emergent Materials Program
Lead: Katherine Flores, Materials Science and Engineering

Solving the “Contact Problem” of Molecular Electronics via Atomic Layer Deposition
Lead: Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, Physics; Co-Applicants: Jonathan Pelz, Physics; Malcolm Chisholm, Chemistry

Throughout the month of November, the Office of Research is hosting a variety of workshops, panel discussions, and other events for Research Awareness Month.  A full schedule of events is available online here

IMR will participate in the Research Awareness Month Expo on Tuesday, Novermber 3rd from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm at Thompson Library. Stop by our table to talk to our technical staff, pick up some literature, and learn more about IMR and what services we provide to the OSU materials community.

Ohio State to help drive Ohio’s new energy economy as state-designated Center of Excellence

The Ohio State University today was named an Ohio Center of Excellence in advanced energy by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. The selection recognizes Ohio State’s wide range of research expertise in the areas of climate, energy and the environment and ties the university’s work directly to the state’s economic development strategies.

In a news conference, Gov. Strickland designated nine Ohio Centers of Excellence in advanced energy. Each of the Centers will focus their academic and research activities within advanced energy to undertake world-class research that ultimately drive the competitiveness of Ohio’s economy. Each will also help the state meet the requirements of Senate Bill 221, a landmark energy reform bill, enacted last year.

Caroline Whitacre, vice president for research at Ohio State, says the award recognizes the university’s unique capacity to assemble comprehensive teams that can focus on critical problems such as global warming, carbon sequestration and a range of sustainable new energy and transportation technologies.

“Ohio State has the people and programs in place to help take energy research in Ohio to the next level,” Whitacre said. “More than 300 Ohio State researchers are focused on some aspect of climate, energy, and the environment. We already partner with many businesses and nonprofits, entities that have helped make Ohio a top-five producer of clean energy jobs. This recognition will help strengthen those partnerships and attract the best researchers, faculty and students who are committed to this important field.”

Whitacre says the Centers of Excellence take the existing synergies and opportunities for collaboration in the energy area among Ohio universities already established by the University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio to a new level.

“In a time of scarce resources, we think it’s important to leverage the strengths of all the state’s public institutions in addressing Ohio’s future. There are a lot of potential connections between us that will benefit not only Ohio State, but also the other universities and ultimately, the citizens of Ohio – by educating the best students and in facilitating cutting-edge research and development that will serve as an economic driver for the state’s future.”

Creating Centers of Excellence at Ohio’s public universities is part of the University System of Ohio’s Strategic Plan for Higher Education, 2008-2017. The idea draws upon the distinctive research strengths of each institution to make Ohio competitive in the country and in the world. It is a way of organizing research excellence across the state to solve problems, create new technologies and propel promising state industries.

In response to the request, Ohio State created five Centers of Excellence which draw faculty and researchers from across the institution to contribute in the most immediate ways to the economic health of our state and to its position in a global economy: Climate, Energy and the Environment; Health and Well-Being, Human Behavior and Bioinformatics; State, Regional and Urban Development; Food Production, Supply and Safety; and Materials, Manufacturing Technologies and Nanotechnologies.

Advanced energy represents the first round of announcements of Centers of Excellence that align with the state’s targeted industries and keep talent in Ohio. The additional university Centers for advanced energy are located at: Bowling Green State University; Case Western Reserve University; Central State University; University of Cincinnati; University of Dayton; The Ohio State University; Ohio University; and The University of Toledo.

Ohio State dedicates more than 300 researchers to the nation’s quest for environmentally sustainable energy solutions that promote economic growth in Ohio and safeguard our planet. Comprehensive teams at Ohio State build on extensive expertise to sequester carbon, refine carbon-trading, generate cleaner, less expensive and renewable power and protect natural resources. They track the effect of climate change on water resources from retreating glaciers to rising sea levels and water tables across the globe. And, they partner with advanced materials experts to make solar energy collection even more commercially viable.

Toward Higher Performance Permanent Magnets for Automotive Applications
Kazuhiro Hono
National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and University of Tsukuba

Thursday, October 29, 2009
9:00 – 10:00 AM (light reception to follow)
E100 Scott Laboratory
201 West 19th Avenue

For a full abstract and bio click here

The ending to this exciting week of shared discoveries was a luncheon where we announced the six winners of this year’s “Best Student Poster Award.”  The award winners were selected from 2 different poster sessions, a Materials Research Student Poster Session and the Center for Emergent Materials Student Poster Session.

2009 IMR Materials Week Poster Session Award Winners:

***Tengfei Jiang, Toward Site Specific Stamping of Graphene
Co -Authors: Dongsheng Li, Siddarth Rajan, Wolfgang Windl
Advisor: Nitin Padture
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
 

Hyunkyu Choi, Characterization of Doped LaFe O3 Oxygen Reduction Catalysts
Co-Authors: Nandita Lakshminarayanan, John Kuhn
Advisor: Umit S. Ozkan
Department: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
 

Inhee Lee, Ferromagnetic Resonance Imaging Using a Submicron Localized Spin Wave Mode
Co-Authors: Yuri Obukhov, Gang Xiang, Adam Hauser, Fengyuan Yang, Palash Banerjee, Denis Pelekhov
Advisor: P. Chris Hammel
Department: Physics
 

**Adam Hauser, Magnetic and Structural Properties of Half-Metallic Sr2FeMoO6 Epitaxial Films Fabricated by Ultra-High Vacuum Sputtering
Co-Authors: R. A. Ricciardo, T. Meyer, A. Genc, P. M. Woodward, H. L. Fraser
Advisor: Fengyuan Yang
Deparment: Physics
 

**Donghun Lee, STM Studies of an Atomic-Scale Gate Electrode Formed by a Single Charged Vacancy in GaAs
Advisor: Jay Gupta
Department: Physics
 

**Rebecca Ricciardo, Chemical, Magnetic and Orbital Order in the substituted Double Perovskite Sr(1-x)Ca(x)Mn0.5Ru0.5O3
Advisor: Patrick M. Woodward
Department: Chemistry

** These students represent the award winners from the Center for Emergent Materials

We look forward to having you join us at IMR Materials Week next year!

IMR Facility Grants are awarded at $2,000 each for 12-month project periods, to assist OSU researchers with facility user access fees and related minor charges.  This fiscal year, IMR will again hold two rounds of Facility Grants competitions with deadlines of October 15, 2009 and March 15, 2010.

Since the inception of our Research Enhancement Program in 2007, IMR has awarded 54 Facility Grants totaling $124,916. 

This is just one of several ways in which IMR suports materials-allied research at The Ohio State University.  Learn more about IMR’s Research Enhancement Program at http://imr.osu.edu/programs/