A new project on smart materials

I am the principle investigator on a new project that is being funded by the National Science Foundation to investigate the physics underlying morphing materials. The project brings together a large team of scientists, engineers, surgeons, educators and even artists to study various aspects of photo-mechanical materials, their applications, and how they can be used as an educational tool.

The grant is expected to be awarded in July; and, I look forward to moving into this new research direction -- through I am sure there will be many administrative headaches associated with this project.  So while I am excited by the research, part of me regrets the extra non-science-related burden that this project will bring.  Note that this project was recommended for funding on my birthday!

The work itself is best summarized by the abstract that we submitted to NSF:
 

The three goals of this project are to demonstrate what we call a “photomorphon,” the basic building block of a smart material that changes shape in response to light, to interconnect photomorphons with light in optical fibers, and to use interconnected photomorphons to create novel devices.  Like the transistor, which endows integrated circuits with complex functionality, photomorphons interconnected with light will make photonic circuits with exceptional capabilities.  Each element within such a photomorphon network will be both a sensor and an actuator, making a morphing material that intelligently changes shape in response to external stimuli.  Our approach is to work from the ground up in developing new materials with enhanced photomechanical response, creating photomorphons from the new materials, and integrating these to explore applications enabled by morphing materials. Applications will include tactile haptics and sensors, ultra-smart active textiles, and adaptive stretchable electronics, antennas and mirrors.

The fruits of our work will be the scientific and engineering foundations that enable technologies that are unimaginable today. We are developing a tool-set to build photomorphon networks and to understand how to program them.  As proof-of-principle of a photomorphon device, we are collaborating with physicians to make a light-actuated electrode positioner to be used for deep brain stimulation, which is currently in clinical trials and hold great promise for treatment of neural diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.   Our focus on using light to bend fibers into arbitrary space curves is an excellent paradigm for exploring the connections with art, and connecting art with soft-matter science in a way that will attract curious and creative young students to explore exciting new research embodying the union of art and science.

Rejection Still Hurts

Twenty years of experience with rejection makes it no easier. Funding brings immediate optimism in anticipation of the exciting work to come. On the flip side is the dreaded email that coldly states, "Panel Recommendation: The proposal was placed in the Do Not Recommend [DNR] category by the panel. " I avoid the gloom of rejection by filing away the reviews for several months, allowing enough time to pass for me to give them an objective read. Now that the sting of rejection has subsided, I am ready to share the reviewers' comments of a proposal that was rejected last year.

Two years ago, I felt glib satisfaction when NSF began soliciting "highly novel" proposals that showed potential for truly transformative breakthroughs. I was filled with certainty that the reviewers would see the brilliance of my ideas. The basis of my proposal was simple. In analogy to a transistor, which controls the flow of electrical current, the materials that we are studying can control the flow of light. They also act as sensors and can change shape in response to light. But the coup des gras is that these materials can be made into devices that can be integrated together into big morphing blobs with incredible intelligence (click here for a tutorial on photomechanical effects and smart materials).

We had built the an optical logic circuit - equivalent to several transistors worth of computing power, but with all the extra functionality, and all in a single device. We argued that in analogy to electronics, if we could demonstrate the equivalent of an integrated circuit (we started small, proposing to connect two such devices together), then the potential technological impacts would be staggering. Below is the summary of the three reviewers:

Summary Statement of Reviewer 1

The objective is to make a novel new material that has the ability to morph in response to stress or light. The PI aims to use this bifurcation component for mimicking a neural network. Although there are some concerns including size, scalability, speed and power efficiency, this might be a good test bed for studying unit components for a neural network.

Summary Statement of Reviewer 2

This is an excellent proposal with an interesting novel idea that can lead to a significant impact in a wide range of fields/applications. Also, the theoretical and experimental studies around this subject are broad enough to constitute a new field. I consider this proposal a highly transformative work.

Summary Statement of Reviewer 3

This is a visionary proposal with concrete short term goals. It could lay the foundation of a transformational shift in thinking about optical "materials." It is a refreshingly novel topic coupled with strong collaborations and interesting educational and outreach efforts. However, a more succinct background section combined with more extensive description of the experimental details would have made the proposal stronger.

Just based on the summaries, I would have thought that my proposal would be funded. There were no errors in my way of thinking, the worked seemed promising, and would even open up a new field.

To summarize the reviewer's comments (based on the full reviews and as alluded to in the summaries), the proposal was very good. The two criticisms were that (1) I did not provide extensive details of the experiments and (2) there were some concerns about how good this technology would be down the road. In essence, it would be akin to telling the inventors of the transistor that they had to anticipate all of the potential problems in building integrated circuits, and, that they did not give enough details about how they would design technologies that were decades away.

The National Science Foundation has an interest in supporting science to nurture new discoveries that are intrinsically interesting or that lead to new technologies - two criteria that my proposal met. Even my educational plan was considered innovative. However, to be fair, I understand that there are many more proposals submitted than can be funded, and not all good work can be supported. This is a fact of life that all scientists accept.

To end this post on a happier note, I quote the panel summary of a proposal of mine that was funded on the topic of theoretical studies of fundamental issues of light-matter interactions:

"This proposal addresses important and fundamental issue of optimizing nonlinear optical response of optical materials to achieve the highest figures of merit by performing modeling of 2nd, 3d and higher order non-linear susceptibilities. If successful, the theory/modeling will guide the materials synthesis in developing new optical materials with large nonlinearities increased by a factor of thirty, thus opening up interesting and important applications, e.g. in the area of cancer diagnostics and treatment. The panel members unanimously expressed support of this proposal as high payoff transformative direction of research."

Now this is a review that I don't mind reading repeatedly! But instead, my focus is on the steady progress that we are making over the last 2 years since the project was funded. In the end, a few declined proposals doesn't diminish the great satisfaction of doing interesting research.