NSF Awards $18 Million to UC San Diego to Advance Quantum Materials Research
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced a six-year, $18 million award (NSF Award #2614051) to the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) to establish a new Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC). The center will focus on the development of advanced quantum materials and is part of NSF's $108 million National Materials Program. The program also funds MRSEC centers at six universities, including Princeton University, Harvard University, Columbia University, MIT, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, collectively advancing frontier research in areas such as quantum metamaterials, soft matter, and microelectronics.
From Biomaterials to Quantum Technology Hardware
For UC San Diego, the 2026–2032 award is a competitive renewal of the university's initial MRSEC funding in 2020. The renewal shifts the center's core mission from biomaterials and polymer chemistry to foundational quantum technology hardware. The center is jointly led by the Jacobs School of Engineering and the School of Physical Sciences, and conducts research in collaboration with regional partners such as UC Irvine, UCLA, and UC Santa Barbara. The center organizes its experimental and computational research around two main thrusts.
Thrust 1: Quantum Metamaterials for All-Optical Processing
This thrust is co-led by Zhaowei Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Richard Averitt, professor of physics. The research team focuses on nanoscale engineered structures that go beyond classical design rules, leveraging quantum mechanical effects to achieve new functionalities. Through bottom-up chemical self-assembly techniques, the team can fabricate nanoscale optical traps and plasmonic structures that convert ultrafast infrared light pulses into visible light with efficiencies more than 1,000 times greater than conventional metallic structures. These ultra-compact, rapidly switchable structures are designed for applications in all-optical quantum signal processing, nanophotonics, and low-latency AI computing infrastructure.
Thrust 2: Chemically Tailored Two-Dimensional Superlattice Materials
This thrust is co-led by Joshua Figueroa, professor of chemistry, and Monica Allen, professor of physics. The research team focuses on controlling electronic quantum states in two-dimensional materials with atomic-level thickness. By synthesizing organometallic building blocks to construct structured multilayer superlattices, the team can confine electron motion to specific quantum-ordered pathways. Using low-temperature microwave imaging, the team studies electronic phases in topological insulators, two-dimensional superconductors, and layered semiconductors to develop low-power quantum electronics and reliable qubit interconnects.
High-Performance Modeling and Workforce Development Infrastructure### High-Performance Modeling and Workforce Development Infrastructure
To overcome synthesis bottlenecks in the vast chemical search space, the center integrates data-driven predictive modeling capabilities through a computational facility for mesoscale materials design led by Tod Pascal, Professor of NanoEngineering. In collaboration with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), this facility leverages machine learning algorithms based on first-principles quantum simulations to screen candidate superlattice and metamaterial architectures, accelerating the experimental synthesis cycle.
In addition, the center manages the Materials Characterization Facility (MCF) for commercial testing and operates the Research Immersion in Materials Science and Engineering (RIMSE) program — an NSF-funded workforce development initiative aimed at training transfer students, graduate researchers, and industrial partners in advanced quantum laboratory instrumentation and computational methods.
This grant will strongly advance the field of quantum materials, laying the foundation for future quantum computing and electronic technologies. For technical details on each research direction and the original announcement, please refer to the official releases from NSF and UC San Diego.