News

Press Release
BioPACIFIC MIP has signed off on the state of the art microED
There’s a new shared-use electron microscope at UCLA for investigators seeking to elucidate the atomic structures of bio-sourced monomers and small molecules. The NSF’s BioPACIFIC MIP now offers access to its ThermoFisher Scientific Spectra 300C transmission electron microscope (TEM) housed at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
MicroED at BioPACIFIC MIP now online!
Press Release
New X-ray Facility Brings Synchrotron-level Capabilities to BioPACIFIC MIP
The BioPACIFIC MIP X-ray Diffraction Platform features an unparalleled laboratory SAXS-WAXS (small- and wide-angle x-ray scattering) beamline for high-throughput characterization of biopolymers and nanostructures. Custom-developed by a research team at UCSB, the new X-Ray instrument offers performance level comparable to a second-generation synchrotron but on a benchtop instrument, to help scientists elucidate materials structure in the nano- and meso-scale.
BioPACIFIC MIP X-ray Facility
Press Release
Read de Alaniz Receives Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award
BioPACIFIC MIP co-Director Prof. Javier Read de Alaniz has been awarded the 2023 American Chemical Society Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, sponsored by the Arthur C. Cope Fund, in recognition and encouragement of excellence in organic chemistry.
Prof. Javier Read de Alaniz
Press Release
New 3D Printing capabilities at BioPACIFIC MIP
BioPACIFIC MIP has added two new printers to the Additive Manufacturing facility at UC Santa Barbara. Both printers are accessible at no cost through the BioPACIFIC MIP User Program and proposal process.
Carbon M2 (left) and Mono3Z2 (Right)
Press Release
New type of semiconductor may advance low-energy electronics
A research partnership between Penn State and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could enable an improved method to make a new type of semiconductor that is a few atoms thin and interacts with light in an unusual way. This new semiconductor could lead to new computing and communications technologies that use lower amounts of energy than current electronics.
Nine layers of SnSe that were epitaxially grown on an a-plane sapphire substrate. Credit: Wouter Mortelmans/MIT. All Rights Reserved.
Press Release
NSF Continues Support for Inaugural Materials Innovation Platforms
The U.S. National Science Foundation funds fundamental research to enhance U.S. competitiveness, economy, and people's lives. The Materials Innovation Platforms (MIPs) program was initiated in 2015 in response to national needs in mid-scale research infrastructure for accelerating materials research. "Materials Innovations Platforms represent a new modality for supporting scientific research," says Linda Sapochak, director of the Division of Materials Research at NSF. "The MIP program provides the required infrastructure made available to a diverse set of stakeholders to support transdisciplinary research and training, to provide broad access to cutting-edge tools, and to facilitate data and knowledge sharing in key enabling areas of national priority."
Image Credit: Javier Read de Alaniz, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Press Release
Crystal Growth Lab Renews Funding from NSF
Johns Hopkins' groundbreaking bulk crystal growth facility, part of one of four materials innovation platforms supported by the National Science Foundation, has received a $5 million renewal grant that will allow scientists to continue designing and creating new materials there for the next generation of electronic devices.
Image Source: https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/12/22/paradim-lab-crystal-growth/.
Press Release
$22.5M NSF Grant Accelerates Materials Discovery
Cornell’s Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Materials (PARADIM) has received a second award of $22.5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund another five years, enabling scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs nationwide to design and create new inorganic materials for use in electronics.
Doctoral students from Cornell, Stanford and Harvard universities participate in PARADIM’s weeklong summer school program.
Press Release
NSF Renews Funding for Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a renewal of funding for the Materials Innovation Platform (MIP) national user facility at Penn State’s Materials Research Institute (MRI), the Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium (2DCC). The 2DCC, which has many users from the Eberly College of Science, is one of four MIPs in the United States and was awarded $20.1 million over five years, an increase of 13% above the initial award in 2016.
Roman Engel-Herbert, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, characterizes chalcogenide thin films with a graduate student in a Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium lab in 2017. Credit: Penn State MRI.
Press Release
UCLA, UCSB Share $23.7 Million Grant to Study Biologically Based Polymers
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has named UC Santa Barbara and UCLA joint partners in the BioPolymers, Automated Cellular Infrastructure, Flow, and Integrated Chemistry: Materials Innovation Platform (BioPACIFIC MIP). The five-year, $23.7 million collaboration is part of the NSF Materials Innovation Platforms (MIP) Program and has a scientific methodology reflecting the broad goals of the Materials Genome Initiative, which aims to develop new materials “twice as fast at a fraction of the cost.”
Artist's concept illustration depicts the transformation resulting from using bio-based micro-organisms as the building blocks for better polymers. Photo Credit: Lillian McKinney.