Project description
Innovating 4D polymorphic material design through strain engineering
Polymorphic materials undergo phase transitions with changes in properties like colour and conductivity, yet understanding how altering a material's structure impacts its polymorphism remains challenging. The ERC-funded STRAINSWITCH project aims to control these transitions through strain engineering. The project will develop computational methods to predict how strain from internal and external stimuli influences a material's polymorphism and identify an optimal balance for phase transition control. Objectives include understanding strain propagation over time and space and identifying strains that activate polymorphism under specific conditions. Establishing fundamental relationships between disorder, strain, and function, STRAINSWITCH will focus on 4D polymorphic material design for metal-organic frameworks and metal halide perovskites. Applications in water harvesting and photovoltaic devices will address challenges including water accessibility and renewable energy.
Objective
It is often easy to observe the ability of polymorphic materials to undergo a phase transition through changes in colour, conductivity, photovoltaic efficiency, or other functional properties. In contrast, it is challenging to control under which external stimuli–stress, temperature, adsorption–these materials switch. Yet, enabling such polymorphic material design would be a game changer for pressing societal challenges, from access to drinkable water to producing green energy. This requires a firm understanding of how changing a material’s structure impacts its polymorphism and macroscopic function.
In STRAINSWITCH, I aim to transform polymorphic material design by establishing the strain engineering concept. The central characteristic in my in silico approach is strain: the extent to which a material deforms due to external or internal triggers. On the one hand, external stimuli generate strain, even before they activate a phase transition. On the other, spatial disorder in a structure, tuneable from the atom to the device scale, also induces strain that interferes with external strain fields. My key hypothesis is that it is possible to systematically predict which disorder is needed to ensure polymorphism only occurs under well-defined external triggers by balancing these internal and external strain fields.
To confirm this hypothesis, I will develop new in silico methods with the goal to:
i. understand how disorder induces strain fields in a material that propagate through both space (3D) and time (+1D) to enable 4D design;
ii. predict which internal strain fields activate a material’s polymorphism under specific external stimuli.
In STRAINSWITCH, I will combine both goals to establish fundamental disorder-strain-function relationships that can be validated experimentally for metal-organic frameworks and metal halide perovskites. They will pave the way for 4D polymorphic material design with application in water harvesting, photovoltaic devices, and more.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcrystals
- natural sciencesphysical sciencescondensed matter physicssoft matter physics
- natural scienceschemical sciencesphysical chemistryquantum chemistry
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materialsnanocrystals
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsstatistical mechanics
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
9000 Gent
Belgium