U.S. Department of Energy-supported project is led by assistant professor Tomas Marangoni (Department of Chemistry and Frontier Institute for Research in Sensor Technologies, FIRST)
As computer chips approach the limits of miniaturization, University of Maine researchers are exploring new quantum materials that could help power the next generation of electronics.
A U.S. Department of Energy grant announced Friday, Oct. 16, will support the project.
Led by Tomas Marangoni, an assistant professor of chemistry, the team will build materials from metal atoms held together by organic molecules. These tiny parts form a repeating structure, much like a framework, built from joints and connecting pieces.
Marangoni said the project takes a different approach to developing electronic materials.
“The main goal is basically to get away from the concept of miniaturization, which is making things smaller, smaller, smaller,” he said. “And to try to create material with new types of electronic and magnetic properties.”
The researchers want to find out whether changing the connecting molecules’ electronic states can make the entire material behave differently.
In many existing materials of this type, the connections do little to allow the metal atoms to interact electronically and magnetically. The team is developing a novel class of molecules, called radicaloids, that are expected to strengthen those interactions across the material, allowing its components to work together more effectively.
Researchers also will test whether adding or removing electrons could further enable the manipulation of the electronic properties of these materials. This matters because engineers need materials whose behavior they can predict and control. A material that can be adjusted after it is built could give them more flexibility when designing future technology.
While the research could eventually contribute to advances in electronics, Marangoni emphasized that the Department of Energy’s investment focuses on fundamental discoveries rather than immediate commercial applications.
“It’s not a project that is interested in making microchips tomorrow,” Marangoni said. “It’s a project that is interested in seeing what comes after that. Like, in the future, how we can get away from that technology and create the next electronic revolution.”
The project brings together researchers from chemistry, physics, engineering and nanotechnology. UMaine professors Nicholas Bingham, Alice Bruce and Mitchell Bruce will join Marangoni as co-principal investigators. The team will collaborate with Yi Liu, an international expert in framework materials at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Molecular Foundry in California.
Contact: David Nordman, david.nordman@maine.edu
