Department of Defense awards $232,320 in funding to UNM's Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology

The Department of Defense (DOD) recently announced awards totaling $161 million to 281 university researchers under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program or DURIP. The awards, which include $232,320 in funding to The University of New Mexico's Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology and Principal Investigator Terefe Habteyes, will support the purchase of major equipment to augment current and develop new research capabilities relevant to the Department at 120 institutions across 39 states in fiscal year 2024.

DURIP is a strategic investment in the DOD that champions the country's scientific ecosystem. The program equips universities to perform state-of-the-art research that boosts the United States' technological edge while ensuring that the future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce remains second to none.

This year's awards will accelerate basic research in areas the National Defense Science and Technology Strategy prioritizes, including quantum computing and quantum networks, bioelectronics, hypersonics, autonomy, and novel materials design, development, and characterization.

"DURIP awards build vital research infrastructure, advancing the exploration of knowledge and upholding the cutting-edge capabilities of our academic institutions," said Bindu Nair, director of basic research in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, whose mission is to continuously advance technological capabilities and innovation within the DOD. "This funding underpins the enduring scientific excellence of our universities, nurtures the development of the next STEM workforce, and catalyzes scientific innovations that will lead to unprecedented military capabilities in the years ahead."

The program is administered through a merit competition by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, and Office of Naval Research. It seeks specific proposals from university investigators conducting foundational science and engineering research relevant to national defense.

At UNM, the award will go toward spectroscopy equipment to help deepen researchers' understanding of condensed phenomena in spatial and temporal dimensions.

"Specifically, we plan to acquire nano-FTIR spectroscopy equipment to enhance our existing near-field microscope," said Habteyes, the principal investigator of UNM's proposal. "This microscope enables us to acquire two-dimensional scan images with approximately 10 nm spatial resolution at a single excitation wavelength. The addition of nano-FTIR capability will allow us to acquire spectra from the nanoscale regime using a broad-band infrared excitation source."

While measurement technologies that achieve spectral and temporal resolutions have matured, the spatial resolution of infrared microscopy has been limited to about 5000 nm by the diffraction property of electromagnetic radiation. Significant progress has been achieved in working around the diffraction limit. The development of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy was recognized in the 2014 Nobel Prize, 140 years after the Abbe diffraction limit was formulated.

However, fluorescence microscopy is not applicable for analyzing large class of materials that do not fluoresce. Other techniques, such as X-ray spectroscopies and electron microscopes, provide chemical-specific information, but they have drawbacks compared to optical spectroscopy. Scanning tunneling microscopy achieves atomic resolution but its application is limited to imaging monolayers of molecules assembled on conductive surfaces.

"The objective of this proposal is to develop integrated nanoscale chemical imaging and spectroscopy that builds on the analytical power of infrared absorption spectroscopy for investigating organic, inorganic and biological materials as well as physicochemical processes to advance projects currently funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research," said Habteyes.

The proposed instrumentation includes nano-FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy and near-field imaging based on electromagnetic field localization at the tip of an atomic force microscope to achieve spatial resolution on the order of 10 nm independent of excitation wavelength. This capability will enable chemical identification and two-dimensional mapping of chemical and optical heterogeneities in solid materials.

The new capability will advance projects such as real-space mapping of molecular doping, radiation damage, and thermal effects, synergistic novel organic materials synthesis and modern optical characterization, interfacial properties in vapor-deposited organic interfaces, and nanoscale analysis of ultra-thin infrared absorbers and photodetectors.

"The capability will transform the research quality and productivity in multiple research groups," Habteyes said. "It will also provide training opportunities on advanced optical characterization technology for undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral researchers while fostering collaborations with scientists at the Air Force Research Lab and Sandia National Labs."

The project includes several co-PIs across several departments, including Dongchang Chen (Chemistry and Chemical Biology), Jeremy Edwards (Chemistry and Chemical Biology), Francesca Cavallo (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Sang Eon Han (Chemical and Biological Engineering), and Viktoriia Babicheva (Electrical and Computer Engineering).

The DURIP program is administered through a merit competition by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, and Office of Naval Research. It seeks specific proposals from university investigators conducting foundational science and engineering research relevant to national defense.

For more information, visit DURIP.

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