UK-US Collaboration in Nanostructured Molecular Materials

The proposed research involves a three-way collaboration between the research groups of Professor Colquhoun (Chair of Materials Chemistry, University of Reading), Professor Stoddart (Director of the California Nanosystems Institute at UCLA) and Professor Goddard (Director of the Materials and Process Simulation Centre at Caltech). The three research groups will explore a wide range of opportunities for collaborative research in Nanostructured Molecular Materials, especially as applied to the processing of information at the molecular level and to polymer nanostructuring in self-healing composite materials and in proton-transport membranes for fuel cells. This programme will be achieved through a series of working exchange-visits of up to a month in duration, involving not only the three senior researchers noted above, but also academic co-workers, PDRA's and postgraduate students. In all, it is planned that twelve researchers (6 each from the UK and the US) will spend significant periods working in alternate centres as a result of the present proposal. Electronic communications (including a dedicated group intranet and web-conferencing facilities) will be used to maximise the day-to-day involvement of all researchers in the collaboration.Experimental studies (at UCLA) and computational approaches (at Caltech) will be applied to the problems outlined above, and a basis will be established for major funding applications in the near future, for example to the NSF PIRE programme which is aimed at supporting significant (up to 0.5M USD per annum) US-international research collaborations in the physical and biological sciences.The results of the programme will be outlined during a one-day Masterclass for young researchers with Prof. Stoddart and a two-day end-of-grant symposium in Reading, at which speakers will include not only participants in the collaboration but also additional invited speakers from the UK, Europe and the US (both academic and industry). The theme of the meeting is to be Nanostructured Molecular Materials: Information and Complexity , reflecting both curent and future areas for materials research.