MRI: Acquisition of Computer Cluster for Data-Driven Discovery in Materials Research and Education

This Major Research Instrumentation to the University Corporation, Northridge provides support for expanding and strengthening the computational facility of the W.M. Keck Computational Materials Theory Center at California State University Northridge (CSUN), a Hispanic serving institution. The cluster will enable cutting-edge materials research and education in the following three areas: (1) in strongly interacting many-body electronic systems; (2) in spin transport in multifunctional devices; and (3) in interfacial charge transfer and separation in excitonic photovoltaics. The goal is to advance fundamental understanding of exotic quantum states of matter, to unravel intricate interaction between electron charge and spin, and to expand the knowledge basis for rational design of photovoltaic materials. The research has potential to lead to faster computers, ultra-high capacity memory storage devices, and cheaper ""plastic"" solar cells. The cluster will also facilitate the education and training of next generation of materials scientists, including students from underrepresented groups. Computational courses will be developed where students gain hands-on experience in scientific programming and solving practical problems by computation. The cluster will also offer opportunities for high-school teachers and their students via NSF funded teachers summer camps to learn about computational materials science.

The research team will develop state-of-the-art computational approaches and apply them to fundamentally important problems in condensed matter physics and materials science. The researchers will investigate fundamental problems associated with correlated electron systems and demonstrate novel physical phenomena emerging in complex materials. The improved understanding and quantitative prediction based on computational modeling on the complex properties of these interacting systems will provide valuable information and guidance for the theoretical and experimental research in the field. The scientists will study the electronic structure and spin transport of multifunctional nano-systems consisting of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric tunnel junctions based on multiferroics and topological insulator materials. The coupling between different degrees of freedom and its sensitivity to interfacial structure will give rise to a wealth of exciting phenomena, providing unprecedented access to emerging multi-functionalities of future spintronic devices. They will tackle a grand challenge in solar energy conversion, charge transfer and separation at donor/acceptor interfaces, which is the bottleneck for excitonic solar cells. A first principles based theoretical framework will be developed to address fundamental problems at the organic/organic and organic/inorganic interfaces. The computational developments and the proposed research have the potential to provide fundamental understanding of important unresolved questions in areas of condensed matter physics and materials science, ranging from understanding new states of matter, topological characterization, unconventional superconductivity, and quantum phase transitions in strongly interacting electron and spin systems; to spin transport in ferromagnetic/ferroelectric tunnel junctions and spintronic devices; and to charge transfer and separation at donor/acceptor interfaces pertinent to solar cells.