NSF Awards UC San Diego $18 Million MRSEC Grant for Quantum Materials Development in $108 Million National Materials Initiative

NSF Awards UC San Diego $18 Million MRSEC Grant for Quantum Materials Development in $108 Million National Materials Initiative The U.S.

National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) an $18 million, six-year grant (NSF Award #2614051) to fund a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) dedicated to developing advanced quantum materials. The award is part of a broader $108 million NSF deployment funding six national MRSEC research centers across the United States—including Princeton University, Harvard University, Columbia University, MIT, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln—to advance frontier research in quantum metamaterials, soft matter, and microelectronics. At UC San Diego, the 2026–2032 grant represents a competitive renewal of the campus’s initial 2020 MRSEC award, pivoting the center’s core mission from bio-materials and polymer chemistry to fundamental quantum technology hardware. Jointly led by the Jacobs School of Engineering and the School of Physical Sciences—alongside regional collaborators at UC Irvine, UCLA, and UC Santa Barbara—the center structures its experimental and computational research around two primary thrusts: [ UC San Diego MRSEC Hardware Thrusts ] │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┐ ▼ ▼ Thrust 1: Quantum Metamaterials Thrust 2: Chemically Tailored 2D Superlattices • Bottom-up nanoscale optical self-assembly. • Atomically thin sheet-like structures. • Hybrid light-matter interaction & ultrafast conversion. • Order-imposed electron transport control. • Direct all-optical & quantum computing platforms. • Topological insulators, superconductors, & 2D logic. Thrust 1: Quantum Metamaterials for All-Optical Processing Co-led by Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Zhaowei Liu and Physics Professor Richard Averitt, the Quantum Metamaterials group focuses on nanometer-scale engineered structures that move beyond classical design rules to leverage quantum mechanical effects. By employing bottom-up, chemical self-assembly techniques, the team creates nanoscale optical wells and plasmonic structures capable of converting ultrafast infrared light pulses into visible light with conversion efficiencies over 1,000 times greater than conventional metallic architectures. These ultra-compact, fast-switching structures are targeted at all-optical quantum signal processing, nanophotonics, and low-latency AI computing infrastructure. Thrust 2: Chemically Tailored 2D Superlattice Materials Co-led by Chemistry Professor Joshua Figueroa and Physics Professor Monica Allen, the Chemically Tailored Superlattices group focuses on controlling electronic quantum states within atom-thick 2D materials. By synthesizing organometallic building blocks to build structured, multi-layer superlattices, the team restricts electron motion to specific quantum-ordered pathways. Using low-temperature microwave imaging techniques, the team studies electronic phases across topological insulators, 2D superconductors, and layered semiconductors to develop low-power quantum electronics and robust qubit interconnects. High-Performance Modeling & Workforce Infrastructure To overcome synthesis bottlenecks across vast chemical search spaces, the center integrates data-driven predictive modeling via the MesoMaterials Design Computational Facility, directed by NanoEngineering Professor Tod Pascal. Leveraging machine-learning algorithms trained on first-principles quantum simulations in partnership with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the facility screens candidate superlattice and metamaterial architectures to accelerate experimental synthesis loops. Additionally, the center oversees the Materials Characterization Facility (MCF) for commercial testing, and manages the Research Immersion in Materials Science and Engineering (RIMSE) program—an NSF-funded workforce initiative designed to train transfer students, graduate researchers, and industrial partners in advanced quantum laboratory instrumentation and computational methods. Review the official institutional grant announcement here, inspect the technical breakdown of the Quantum Metamaterials Thrust here, and examine the historical 2020 MRSEC Launch Announcement here on the UC San Diego Newsroom. Additionally, read the $108M national deployment release on the NSF Press Portal here, and view award details on the NSF Award Search Engine here. August 1, 2026 Mohamed Abdel-Kareem2026-08-01T04:34:56-07:00 Leave A Comment Cancel replyComment Type in the text displayed above Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.