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Library > Fact Sheets > AFOSR: Organic Materials Chemistry
AFOSR: ORGANIC MATERIALS CHEMISTRY
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Aerospace, Chemical and Material Sciences Directorate
Organic Materials Chemistry
Dr. Charles Y-C Lee, Program Manager
The research area goal is to gain a better understanding of the influence of chemical structures and processing conditions on the properties and behaviors of polymeric and organic materials. This understanding will lead to development of advanced organic and polymeric materials for Air Force applications. This program's approach is to study materials chemistry and physics through synthesis, processing, and characterization. This area addresses both functional properties and properties pertinent to structural applications. Materials with these properties will provide capabilities for future Air Force systems to achieve global awareness, global mobility, and space operations.
Proposals with innovative material concepts that will extend our understanding of the structure-property relationship of these materials and achieve significant property improvement over current state-of-the-art materials are sought. Current interests include photonic polymers and liquid crystals, polymers with interesting electronic properties, polymers with controlled dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability including negative index materials, and novel properties polymers modified with nanostructures. Applications of polymers in extreme environments, including space operation environments, are of interest. Novel materials concepts that will enable multifunctional, reconfigurable, or adaptive structures are encouraged.
In the area of photonic polymers, research emphases are on materials whose refractive index can be actively controlled. These include, but are not limited to, electro optic polymers, liquid crystals, photorefractive polymers and magneto-optical polymers. Organic molecules with large nonlinear absorption are also of interest. Examples of electronic properties include conductivity, charge mobility, electro-pumped lasing and solar energy harvesting. Material concepts related to power generation and storage is also of interest. In the area of structural properties, polymers with high thermomechanical properties are desirable. End uses of these structural polymers include aircraft and rocket non-fiber reinforced composite components such as canopies, coatings, and special properties polymers. Issues relating to extreme environments, thermal, thermoxidative, radiation, atomic oxygen bombardment and extreme mechanical loading are of interests. Nanotechnology approaches are encouraged to address all the above-mentioned issues. Approaches based on biological systems to achieve materials properties that are difficult to achieve through conventional means are of interest.
Organic based materials, including inorganic hybrids, with controlled magnetic permeability and dielectric permittivity are also of interest. Of great interest are multifunctional materials with non-trivial, low-loss permittivity and permeability at frequencies greater than 100 MHz, especially those functioning at greater than 1 GHz. This interest extends into 3-D bulk materials with negative index (both permittivity and permeability being negative).
Contact:
Dr. Charles Y-C Lee
AFOSR/NA
Tele: (703) 696-7779
DSN: 426-7779
FAX: (703) 696-8451
Email: charles.lee@afosr.af.mil
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