Emerging Science and Research Opportunities for Metals and Metallic Nanostructures

Abstract

During the next decade, fundamental research on metals and metallic nanostructures (MMNs) has the potential to continue transforming metals science into innovative materials, devices, and systems. A workshop to identify emerging and potentially transformative research areas in MMNs was held June 13 and 14, 2012, at the University of California Santa Barbara. There were 47 attendees at the workshop (listed in the Acknowledgements section), representing a broad range of academic institutions, industry, and government laboratories. The metals and metallic nanostructures (MMNs) workshop aimed to identify significant research trends, scientific fundamentals, and recent breakthroughs that can enable new or enhanced MMN performance, either alone or in a more complex materials system, for a wide range of applications. Additionally, the role that MMN research can play in high-priority research and development (R&D) areas such as the U.S. Materials Genome Initiative, the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative, and other similar initiatives that exist internationally was assessed. The workshop also addressed critical issues related to materials research instrumentation and the cyberinfrastructure for materials science research and education, as well as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce development, with emphasis on the United States but with an appreciation that similar challenges and opportunities for the materials community exist internationally. A central theme of the workshop was that research in MMNs has provided and will continue to provide societal benefits through the integration of experiment, theory, and simulation to link atomistic, nanoscale, microscale, and mesoscale phenomena across time scales for an ever-widening range of applications. Within this overarching theme, the workshop participants identified emerging research opportunities that are categorized and described in more detail in the following sections in terms of the following: three-dimensional (3-D) and four-dimensional (4-D) materials science. Structure evolution and the challenge of heterogeneous and multicomponent systems. The science base for property prediction across the length scales. Nanoscale phenomena at surfaces—experiment, theory, and simulation. Prediction and control of the morphology, microstructure, and properties of “bulk” nanostructured metals. Functionality and control of materials far from equilibrium. Hybrid and multifunctional materials assemblies. Materials discovery and design: enhancing the theory-simulation-experiment loop. Following an introduction, these emerging research opportunities are discussed in detail, along with challenges and opportunities for the materials community in the areas of instrumentation, cyberinfrastructure, education, and workforce development.