UA’s Mint Center Receives $6 Million National Science Foundation Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama Center for Materials for Information Technology, commonly known as MINT, has received a major award from the National Science Foundation. The $6 million award will be distributed during the next six years and is to fund a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

This is the third MRSEC grant to the MINT Center from NSF. Previous grants were for $450,000 per year and $600,000 per year. The $1 million per year award will support research on new disk media, spin electronics and molecular information storage.

“I want to congratulate the MINT faculty for the award they have received from the National Science Foundation,” said Dr. Nancy Barrett, UA provost. “Many of the best research universities in the country compete for these MRSEC awards, but only a few win. This award puts UA and the MINT Center in very select company.”

Dr. Bill Butler, MINT director, MRSEC director and physics professor, said MINT has shown once again that with collaborative and unselfish teamwork, The University of Alabama can compete with the best research universities in the nation.

“MRSEC funding is very important to us, but the recognition it brings to The University is very important as well,” Butler added. “It means a lot when you see UA listed alongside MIT, Cal Tech, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.”

Seventeen faculty from six academic departments will participate in two interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs). In IRG-1, Dr. Dave Nikles, associate professor of chemistry and materials science, and Dr. J.W. Harrell, professor of physics, are working on a revolutionary new concept, storing information on tiny magnetic particles about 20 atoms across that self-assemble into an ordered array.

In principle, these particles could each store one bit of information. At this density, all of the movies ever produced by Hollywood could be stored on a single disc the size a CD with room left over for all of the words in all of the books in the Library of Congress.

Another research development within IRG-1 involves Dr. Ed Fujiwara, adjunct professor of physics, who is developing magnetic sensors that can read the extremely tiny bits of magnetization that will be used in future disk drives.

Dr. Gary Mankey, associate professor of physics, is working on the fabrication of new types of electronic devices based on the idea of taking advantage of the electron’s spin as well as its charge. This new science of “spin-electronics” may lead to computers that work in a fundamentally different way from those we use today.

The fourth aspect is aimed at developing a new class of spin-electronic materials based on magnetic oxides. Dr. Raghav Pandey, professor of electrical engineering, Dr. Rainer Schad, assistant professor of physics, and Dr. Tonya Klein, assistant professor of chemical engineering, are working on this topic. Dr. Pieter Visscher, professor of physics, provides theory and modeling support for all of the activities in IRG-1.

Dr. Si Blackstock, associate professor of chemistry, leads IRG-2. This group aims to take advantage of a class of molecules called dendrimers that are characterized by branches radiating outward in many directions.

One application of these devices being pursued by Blackstock and Dr. Greg Szulczewski, assistant professor of chemistry, is the use of these molecules for information storage. The goal of this research is to store a bit of information as a charge on a single molecule.

A second application of these dendrimeric molecules is being pursued by Dr. Shane Street, assistant professor of chemistry, Dr. Mark Weaver, associate professor of materials engineering, and Dr. John Barnard, chairman of material science at the University of Pittsburgh. They have combined dendrimer molecules with other types of materials, such as metals, to make hybrid materials with novel properties.

In addition to research into exciting new materials and phenomena, the MRSEC grant will support interdisciplinary education and foster industry outreach. The MRSEC faculty led by Dr. Garry Warren, professor of metallurgical and materials engineering, provides summer research projects for promising young scientists and high school teachers from around the country.

The program works with science educators and the Integrated Science Program to develop materials for teaching science, and it fosters collaborations between the MINT Center and historically black colleges and universities.

The MINT Center was founded 12 years ago in order to help attract companies involved in information technology to Alabama and to help prepare Alabamians for careers in the information technology industry. It has focused on information storage technology and was instrumental in bringing Sony and JVC manufacturing plants to Alabama.

MINT students are highly desired by information technology companies such as IBM and Seagate Technologies because they graduate with knowledge of how to work effectively in interdisciplinary research teams.

The NSF MRSEC program currently supports a total of 28 MRSEC Centers with annual NSF support of $51 million. Among the Centers around the country are: California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, Stanford University, Princeton University and State University of New York at Stony Brook.