Multidisciplinary team nets MURI funding to develop novel optical metamaterials

A multidisciplinary team of Engineering at Illinois’ researchers has received $4.5 million from the U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) for research in the development of new optical metamaterials. The winning proposal was one of 23 awards to academic institutions granted recently through the DoD’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).

“Research funded by the MURI program opens up entirely new areas of scientific inquiry, and builds the foundation for future capabilities that will benefit our joint forces,” said Zachary J. Lemnios, the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering. “We are also employing new processes to share research results with our industry partners at a much earlier point to accelerate the transition of concepts from research to end-use products.”

“Through this project, our MURI team will produce advances in the fundamental science of metamaterials and demonstrate that eutectic solidification can produce powerful optical devices,” explained Paul Braun, the Ivan Racheff Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and principal investigator (PI) for the project. “These outcomes will provide a foundation for future advances in engineering practice, and will impact a wide variety of DoD applications where the control of light propagation is important: sensing and sensor systems, lightweight optics, optical cloaking, photonic energy harvesting, and thermal IR management.

“Eutectic solidification has never been used to form optical metamaterials,” Braun adding that during eutectic solidification, a one-phase liquid transforms into a two-phase solid with a highly regular microstructure. “Through close interactions among computational design, photonic theory, eutectic materials development, 3D structural engineering, materials chemistry, and optical characterization, we believe our concepts will come to fruition.”

In addition to Braun, the research team includes Jennifer Lewis, Lane Martin, John Rogers, and L. Ben Freund (materials science and engineering at Illinois); Easo George, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Katsuyo Thorton and John Halloran (University of Michigan; and Shanhui Fan, Stanford.

The highly competitive MURI program complements DoD basic research programs that support traditional, single-investigator university research. The 23 awards announced recently are for a five-year period, subject to availability of appropriations and satisfactory research progress. MURI awards provide greater sustained support for the education and training of students pursuing advanced degrees in science and engineering fields critical to DoD. The list of projects selected for fiscal 2012 funding may be found at http://www.defense.gov/news/2012MURI.pdf.
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Contact: Paul Braun, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, 217/244-7293.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, writer/editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.