Contact information: Director Ward Plummer eplummer@utk.edu Voice: 865 974-2288 (UT) 865 574-5503 (ORNL) FAX: 865-974-3949 (UT) Deputy Director George M. Pharr Materials Science and Engineering pharr@utk.edu Voice: 865 974-8202 (UT) FAX: 865 974-4115 (UT) |
About JIAM
The UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM) builds upon a broad and growing research partnership between the University of Tennessee (UT) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Together the two institutions house some of the world's most advanced facilities in neutron scattering, nanophase materials, and high-performance computing. JIAM combined with the programs and existing research staff in these facilities pursue three goals:
- to become one of the world's foremost centers of materials research;
- to expand America's skilled labor force in multidisciplinary research; and
- to transfer technology to the private sector.
JIAM goals enhance the quality of UT faculty, students and support staff and ORNL research scientists and staff; build and maintain world-class materials research facilities; broaden the educational experience, and orchestrate hires that expand materials research in new directions.
The Vision
It is now quite clear that new emergent phenomena come from exploring the frontiers of complexity in all its forms and that the community must have the tools to handle complex systems. Recent Nobel Prizes clearly illustrate this point—two prizes associated with the quantum and fractional quantum hall effect in artificially constructed layered semiconducting materials; a prize for high Tc in complex transition-metal oxides; and the recent prize in chemistry for a new allotrope of carbon (Buckeyballs). The 2001 physics prize was awarded for the design of heterostructures producing integrated circuits and the chemistry prize for synthesis and development of conductive polymers. What we have learned is that complex or composite systems do not behave simply as a linear combination of the properties of the parent materials. In a much earlier time, Sir Arthur Eddington aptly and eloquently described this situation. "We used to think if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about ‘and’."
Complexity—the materials science Fountain of Youth: Over the last decade the materials community has come to appreciate and embrace the beauty of complexity as an overflowing Fountain of Youth. Scientists pushing the frontiers of chemically and structurally complex materials continually cause new phenomena to emerge. Consequently, complexity and cooperative phenomena are fundamental, long-term interests of science and society. Specific materials interests change with time, of course, but the fundamental importance of a broadly based UT-ORNL joint institute, focused on developing tools for synthesis characterization, and simulation of complex materials, in order to understand and exploit cooperative phenomena, will endure.
The Challenge: If we expect to solve the technological challenges confronting American industry today, we must focus on the discovery and fabrication of materials with novel properties capable of being modified for specific applications. Unlike the majority of past discoveries, research and development increasingly occurs at the boundaries of classical disciplines. Exploring this new scientific frontier requires an integrated approach, with scientists and engineers from various disciplines working arm in arm, located in the same building (JIAM) and equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation. JIAM will bring together researchers from the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the private sector.
A second and potentially greater challenge confronts the American scientific community. Graduate enrollments in the scientific disciplines are declining at many American universities. This decline is particularly alarming with respect to students who intend to remain in the United States after completing their studies. Unless we reverse the trend, the consequence will be a sustained contraction in the number and quality of staff scientists and research faculty in the leading U.S. universities and laboratories.
Metrics for Success
JIAM is a multi-faceted joint institute, focused on research, education, and technology transfer. The metrics for measuring success represent all aspects of the endeavor.
- The most important measure is the quality and recognition of the scientists. JIAM intends to hire, foster, and mentor the best. JIAM scientists will be expected to hold national and international awards, be elected to the national academies, to give invited plenary talks, to hold outstanding citation indexes, etc.
JIAM must play an important role in contributing to the Scientific Work Force. The quality of students and postdoctoral fellows attracted to the materials program is a key measure of JIAM's reputation. A comparable indicator of the program strength is the placement of students and postdocs. Student's awards and career development will be tracked and reported.
Technology transfer is tremendously valuable to the state of Tennessee. All associations with the private sector technology commercialization will be encouraged and reported.
JIAM must foster new and creative research aligned with the needs of the country. This is undoubtedly reflected by the amount of funding received by the JIAM affiliates. The procedure for reporting the Return on Investment for the research centers of excellence will document JIAM financial support.
The Joint Institute for Advanced Materials is a joint project of the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.