Building the future, atom by atom - NSF deploys $108M for materials science at 6 research centers

The U.S. National Science Foundation is pushing materials science beyond the state-of-the-art with an investment of $108 million in six advanced research centers. The centers will explore a broad range of scientific frontiers, such as exotic materials where light and matter are effectively fused together as hybrid particles, and soft materials that can potentially deliver medicines precisely within the human body. Each center will receive $18 million over six years from the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program. NSF has supported such centers since the 1970s when they were called the Materials Research Labs. Renamed as the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers in the 1990s, they are a discovery powerhouse for the U.S. The centers have collectively produced tens of thousands of published scientific findings, resulting in new and improved materials found in everything from dental fillings to rocket engines.