By Gail Gallessich

The National Science Foundation is establishing a new research center, named the Chemical Design of Materials Center, at UCSB. Headed by Nicola A. Spaldin, associate professor of materials, the center is one of the first of three national chemical bonding centers (CBCs) funded by the NSF.

Rational design is a long-held dream of materials researchers, in the sense of being able to start from a set of specifications—

“I want a material with properties A, B, and C”—and systematically work out what the material should be and how to make it.

Spaldin and her Materials Department colleagues—assistant professors Susanne Stemmer and Ram Seshadri—hope to realize that dream. In particular, they will focus on “multifunctional” materials such as, say, magnets that respond in novel ways when exposed to light.

The materials design center will work with chemists and materials scientists from the University of Houston, Ohio State University, and Carnegie Mellon University as well as UCSB. In addition to the campus, the other new CBCs will be based at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Washington. The center’s Web site <http://www.cdm.ucsb.edu> has links to the researchers.

Their three respective goals are to carry out the rational design of materials having new kinds of electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; to synthesize artificial chemical systems that can undergo Darwinian evolution; and to explore new kinds of “green chemistry,” in which materials can be synthesized on an industrial scale using environmentally friendly methods.

In Phase I of the project, the UCSB team will first try to gain a better understanding of chemical bonding in solids, and then use that knowledge to create new materials with interesting electrical and magnetic properties. Finally, they will attempt to combine these new materials into rationally designed “smart” materials—that is, substances that can change and respond in useful ways to environmental stimulation.

According to the NSF announcement, each award provides $1.5 million to a CBC over a three-year period. At the end of that time, those centers showing high potential will be eligible for a Phase II award.

The CBC program was inspired by concern in the scientific community that the NSF has played it too safe with chemistry, say foundation officials. So with this initiative, says Philip B. Shevlin, a program officer who manages the CBC program, “we wanted to encourage very talented people to attack major problems that would engage the public and have a long-term societal benefit—and that would not be what they were already doing.”

	Leading the new Center for Chemical Design of Materials is Nicola Spaldin, center, and her Materials Department colleagues, assistant professors Susanne Stemmer (left) and Ram Seshadri.