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Materials Science Division
The goal of the Materials Science Division is to create novel materials with extraordinary structural and functional properties and explore underlying deterministic composition-processing-structure-external stimuli-property relationships through initiating, promoting, and embracing high-risk, high-payoff scientific ideas with special emphasis on materials design, synthesis and processing (S&P), mechanical behavior, and physical properties of materials to transform the future Army’s capabilities.
The division is organized into four programs: Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Synthesis and Processing of Materials, Materials Design, and Physical Properties of Materials. The first two programs emphasize structural materials, while the latter two emphasize functional materials. The research programs collectively have high potential to enable future transitions to the Army. The division’s total budget was $32.2 million for fiscal year (FY) 2019. The division funds a mix of single investigator (SI) projects—about $140,000 per project per year—and larger Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) projects. The division also funds and manages Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), Defense University Research Instrumentation (DURIP), and so on. During FY 2019, 81 SI awards were funded along with nine Short-Term Innovative Research (STIR) awards focused on jump-starting high-risk projects.
In general, the division’s metrics are strong, with 943 peer-reviewed publications in the FY 2017 to FY 2019 review period, and funding for 312 graduate students per year and 139 postdoctoral researchers per year during the same period. There were 41 transitions reported for this same 3-year period, about 40 percent to both the Army and industry. The projects highlighted were uniformly of high quality, but only a small percentage of the entire portfolio was presented.
MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF MATERIALS PROGRAM
The vision of the Mechanical Behavior of Materials Program is to promote the discovery, understanding, and control of mechanical behaviors across a broad spectrum of advanced structural materials through investigations of extreme environments and phenomena that enable active mechanical response; the research in this program is expected to shape unprecedented capabilities in protection, sustainability, and maneuver. This program’s research strategy is to address the following three key scientific questions: (1) Can extreme environments be exploited to enable materials with extraordinary mechanical properties? (2) How may heterogeneous materials include desirable mechanical properties from subsystems while excluding nondesirable behaviors? (3) How can mechanical forces be manipulated within materials to lessen or concentrate stress at particular spatial locations? The focus is on extreme environments, heterogeneous materials, and mechanical cloaks.
Overall Scientific Quality and Degree of Innovation
Many, but not all, of the selected directions and investments of this program are appropriate. The highlighted projects were excellent, and several transitions of research results to Army laboratories were noted. A positive example is the effort to discover phase transformation behavior of ceramics under high pressure and shear loadings. Ceramic materials are an increasing focus in many countries in the context of traditional applications such as armor to nanoelectronics. Adding to the processing knowledge and atomic layer modeling of such materials is a good example of transformational research.
Scientific Opportunity
The projects highlighted were uniformly of high quality, but only a small percentage of the entire portfolio was presented. It is hard to assess which opportunities may have been missed, and how impactful these funded areas will be over time. Joint publications with investigators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and the Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) ARL-Vehicle Technology Directorate are examples of high-payoff scientific discoveries and a strong strategy for investment. Another opportunity for investment is the general direction of liquid crystal elastomers, which also attracted several sponsors and partners.
Significant Accomplishments
Accomplishments are excellent in terms of traditional scientific metrics, such as peer-reviewed articles in top journals, support of researchers, and so on. However, these metrics need to be supplemented with others—for example, citations and quantitative assessment of technology transitions.
Partnerships and Transitions
Collaborations and transitions within ARL as well as with other organizations are extensive and part of the research culture. Excellent leveraging of funds—for example, with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—is noted. Program managers could better focus funding sources, with less-fragmented portfolios. High-quality science is being supported in the programs, but the programs could be more effective if they have a sharper focus on potential transitions. The transitions listed for FY 2017 to 2019 do not provide convincing evidence for the selection of high-payoff investments by this program.
Level of Effort
The Mechanical Behavior of Materials budget of $38.42 million for FY 2017 to FY 2019 is the largest of the four programs in the Materials Science Division, but the higher program cost per peer-reviewed publication—about $258,000—is the highest. Analysis of publications by funding source may elucidate this result.
Other
High-quality science is being supported in the programs, but the programs could be more effective with a sharper focus on transitions to the Army. ARL overview concepts emphasize the changing and
especially broadening scope of the ARO in the context of multi-domain operations. In this context, ARO strategy on supporting research that enables active mechanical response is appropriate. ARO expects that the research in this program will shape unprecedented capabilities in protection, sustainability, and maneuver. It is a delicate and uncertain balance, and needs to be closely examined and adjusted as results and events justify. Like every reorganization and adjustment of an organization, this corporate growth needs to be closely monitored and adjusted as necessary in the short and long term. Encouragement by ARO management for balancing scientific opportunity with Army transitions would, most likely, improve the effectiveness of transitions without sacrificing scientific quality.
SYNTHESIS AND PROCESSING OF MATERIALS PROGRAM
The Synthesis and Processing (S&P) of Materials Program vision is to create the superior structural materials that will be used in future Army equipment by studying and understanding the underlying mechanisms and phenomena (e.g., solidification, phase transformation, and grain growth, etc.) that govern materials processing. There is a targeted focus on structural materials, and the program aligns well with Army functional concepts of protection, maneuver, and fires with strong evidence of transitions to the Army. This program’s research strategy is to address the following three key scientific questions: (1) How can one move from empirical to quantitative approaches for defining the relationships between material processing parameters and the final materials structure and properties? (2) What fundamental phenomena are influencing the final microstructures of materials under the relevant processing conditions, and how can we capture these phenomena and define them? (3) What new approaches can be explored to provide a new level of control for structural materials processing? Specifically, the goals are to bring consistency to additive manufacturing and understand fundamental phenomena of grain growth and correlate them to mechanical properties leading to higher performing structural materials.
Overall Scientific Quality and Degree of Innovation
The program portfolio is robust and well-coordinated to establish crosscutting relationships between (1) quantitative correlation of materials processing parameters with structural properties; (2) understanding fundamental phenomena that affect microstructure and structural properties; and (3) demonstrations of high levels of process controllability and consistency. The PM has a strong commitment in emphasizing the role of understanding fundamental phenomena in processing. This focus is exemplary, particularly in the synthesis and processing area, where most research has been empirical. There is clear evidence of the use of this strategy in every project. The programs integrate modeling, computation, simulation, and experimental verification. The research highlights included program examples of (1) computational methods to predict processing parameters in additive manufacturing combined with experimental verification; (2) kinetic studies of nanostructures and grain growth using novel characterization methods and computational simulations; and (3) development and understanding of new forces—for example, electric fields, acoustic interactions, or plasmas—in synthesizing structural materials. The projects related to the third category are high risk but show potential to have high impact in synthesizing new metamaterials and functional materials. Of particular note is the innovative MURI program—Consolidation of Novel Materials and Macrostructures from a Dusty Plasma—to develop a process using dusty plasmas to control particle placement on the nanoscale.
Scientific Opportunity
Program examples were presented that successfully support the strategy and development of consistency in additive manufacturing and exploration of new processing methods. These efforts have
high potential to lead to improved controllability of materials produced in additive manufacturing and the synthesis of new materials with tailored properties. Further gains in control of additive manufacturing processes could be made by fostering new collaborations with researchers in the electronics, physics, and mechanical sciences divisions in exploring new imaging systems for in-situ process monitoring of the crystallization process. One can envision in situ process monitoring integrated with a feedback control system to adjust feed rate, solidification rate, cooling rate, and so on, in order to controllably and reproducibly generate materials with desired properties. The creation of Si3N4/SiO2 coatings with near blackbody heat radiation in the dusty plasma MURI is an excellent example of a disruptive technology that could provide significant opportunity.
Significant Accomplishments
The technical accomplishments presented by the PM represent significant advances in reaching the overall program goals of creating superior structural materials. The number of peer-reviewed publications—179 during FY 2017 to FY 2019—is high compared to the level of funding—about $10 million during FY 2017 to FY 2019. The PM has made significant efforts to engage new researchers and maintain tight focus on the S&P vision. MURI, DURIP, and SBIR/STTR programs were established and are a strong complement to enhance program vision.
Partnerships and Transitions
All the transitions cited in the presentation have been to CCDC ARL Weapons and Materials Research Directorate (WMRD) or Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and this speaks to the effectiveness of the program research topic and high quality of execution. Noteworthy is that the Army is currently using the Thompson method for analysis of nanocrystalline grain boundaries, even before completion of this project.
Level of Effort
There is a fine balance of funding to early-career and well-established PIs. In FY 2019, the Synthesis and Processing of Materials Program portfolio was heavily leveraged by MURI, DURIP, and SBIR/STTR funding, which effectively complemented research efforts. There were 34 awards in FY 2019, and the median 12-month SI grant was $135,000. The $10.04 million budget for FY 2017 to FY 2019 is the smallest of the four programs in the Materials Science Division, but the “cost per peer-reviewed publication” is about $56,000—which is the lowest.
Other
The Synthesis and Processing of Materials Program is well managed, and the projects described show a clear strategy toward the overall program goal. The highly relevant research projects focused on bringing consistency to additive manufacturing of structural materials and exploring novel processing methods for improving structural properties of materials. Expanding research efforts for in situ monitoring and characterization during synthesis and processing of materials is an area that would provide further insights and improved control of materials.
MATERIALS DESIGN PROGRAM
The Materials Design Program vision is to establish new smart materials concepts by pursuing fundamental science that exploits multiple physical and chemical forces at play during directed self-assembly to create stimuli-responsive, multifunctional materials with designer geometries, hierarchical complexity, and the ability to dynamically switch among configurations, thereby enabling the future warfighter to adapt to any environment or situation. This program’s research strategy is to address the following three key scientific questions: (1) What internal and external forces are at play during (non-) equilibrium self-assembly, and how can they be controlled to achieve specific targets? (2) What are the design rules for creating novel functional materials that display hierarchical structure, emergent behavior, and/or reconfiguration? (3) How can machine learning be combined with cutting-edge soft matter theory and experiment to revolutionize the design of self-assembled and reconfigurable materials? The Materials Design Program is thus focused on self-assembly and directed assembly to create stimuli-responsive, multifunctional materials to potentially enable the future warfighter to adapt to a range of environments or conditions. The PM gave an excellent presentation and has done a good job in transitioning to managing the program from the previous PM.
The FY 2017 to FY 2019 Materials Design Program was further focused on bottom-up assembly for soft materials. Within this realm, the further focus was on understanding the science of self-assembly, designing novel reconfigurable and hierarchical materials, and computer-aided materials design. By far, this was the most focused of the materials science area presentations, and hence with the disparate projects funded, could be more easily defined as a connected portfolio. The specific, individual projects that were presented in more detail reported impressive results and scientific advances. However, it was not clear what this portfolio of projects would lead to and how the chosen portfolio could lead to transformative technology. Several FY 2017 to FY 2019 transitions were presented, but these were not clearly compelling with respect to being transitioned to the Army functional concepts. Leveraging of funds from DARPA by the previous PM was very impressive, and attempts to regain interest from DARPA in this area needs to be pursued. Funding has dropped about 40 percent or more in FY 2018 and FY 2019 owing to the decrease in DARPA funds, and this clearly needs to be pursued further, because the topic of materials design is of interest to DARPA. Significant success was reported in obtaining funding for MURI projects related to this multidisciplinary area, and these need to continue. Future directions indicated included soft materials that learn, computer-empowered materials design, and self-propagating additive materials. While these are certainly of interest, a methodology needs to be developed to ensure that these are indeed the highest priority areas to pursue.
Overall Scientific Quality and Degree of Innovation
The overall scientific objectives were compelling from a fundamental science perspective. However, it was not apparent whether these objectives would maximize future transitions. The funded projects could advance the frontiers of their specific project areas and in some cases make transformational advances. However, it was not clear whether the portfolio of projects funded were driven by strategic planning related to transitions to the Army. Projects were fundamental and mainly high risk, high payoff. It was not fully clear what the defining impact of ARO funding was, because in many cases, the single investigators funded also had funding from other agencies for many of the reported outputs presented—such as publications and awards. No attempt was made by the presenters to unequivocally establish how funding from ARO was crucial for the research reported compared to that from other sponsors.
Scientific Opportunity
If the overall scientific objectives are more clearly defined in a focused way, the likelihood of reaching the objectives or goals will be higher. At present, the objectives are very broad, and most outcomes could be argued to meet the objectives. The projects highlighted were uniformly of high quality, but only a small percentage of the entire portfolio was presented. The highest priority thrusts would be those that balance scientific excellence and transitions to the Army.
Significant Accomplishments
Some of the papers appeared to be significant advances in the specific areas probed. Projects did report a large number of publications in high-impact journals. However, in many cases, the investigators had funding from multiple funding agencies. This makes it difficult to gauge the defining impact of ARO investments. The science of assembly projects—colloidal diamond lattices for photonic bandgap materials and polymer-stabilized, tubular liquid-liquid interfaces—are to be commended for scientific excellence.
Partnerships and Transitions
Nine transitions were presented, of which eight were to the Army. The MURI projects were collaborative, complementary, and coordinated. DARPA-funded and ARO-managed projects were collaborative and coordinated. All of this could be more transformative if there was a more deliberate and overall strategic positioning and planning, as discussed above. With respect to the base portfolio of single investigator projects, it was not apparent that the projects were complementary, collaborative, coordinated, and integrated, where appropriate, with other ARO, ARL, Army, or DoD programs.
Level of Effort
The Materials Design budget of $30.82 million for FY 2017 to FY 2019 is the second lowest of the four programs in the Materials Science Division, but the “cost per peer-reviewed publication”—about $117,000—is the second highest. With limited funds available to each PM, annual investments need to be more focused to make an impact.
Other
A great strength is that this program is driven in an entrepreneurial manner by individual PMs, so they have advantage to take their programs in different directions without significant bureaucracy. A corresponding weakness is that it is not easy for an individual PM to coherently drive a program for maximum impact without a clear and overarching, strategic positioning to maximize transitions to the Army. As suggested by ARO program planning, PMs need to balance scientific excellence with deeper strategic thinking about the Army’s key modernization priorities. The next-level detail of the science and technologies that are needed for these priorities could then be developed. These can be “blue sky” in nature and can then drive the fundamental science supported by ARO. One possibility is to have an “Ideas Lab” within the Army and involve some key external researchers for each of the six modernization priorities. The end output after significant deep dives will be the scientific breakthroughs needed to arrive at the end goals. These then could drive the fundamental research investments by the ARO in an even more focused manner.
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF MATERIALS PROGRAM
The vision of the Physical Properties of Materials Program is to discover novel functional materials with extraordinary electronic, photonic, magnetic and thermal properties and establish underlying processing-structure-defect-property relationships to empower the future Army with transformational overmatch capabilities in the areas of sensing, communication, power and energy, and so on. This program’s research strategy is to address the following three key scientific questions: (1) How can we create materials of novel compositions and structures through fundamental understanding of nucleation/growth mechanisms, reaction kinetics, interface control, composition/structure control during top-down approaches, and so on? (2) What unique characterization techniques are needed and how can they be developed to explore functional properties of novel materials through exploiting the latest technological developments? (3) How does processing influence defects in materials that influence the functional properties, and how can defect-property correlations be established in novel materials to impact properties? The research focus of this program is to discover novel functional materials, develop extraordinary characterization techniques, and understand and exploit influence of defects.
Overall Scientific Quality and Degree of Innovation
The projects presented within the Physical Properties of Materials Program were uniformly of high quality but represented only a small percentage of the entire portfolio. Many reported publications had multiple funding agencies listed, and so key scientific advances enabled by ARO funds was not clear. The Physical Properties of Materials portfolio as briefed presents a truly impressive breadth of fundamental research in the broad area of functional materials spanning materials discovery to create new properties and capabilities, new characterization technique development, and research aimed at linking processing to defect generation and their effects on properties. Many of these are strongly supporting scientific advances of importance to the Army. The linkages to potential advances in sensor technology, heat management and control, and advances in optical materials were clearly briefed, and the level of science presented was excellent. The truly impressive list of publications listed within this program reflects the high productivity and high level of fundamental science funded within this program element. In addition, owing to the breadth of the program and the limited funds available, its collective impact can only be limited. With limited funds, it is necessary to focus efforts in strategically chosen areas to achieve maximum impact. Last, funding of graduate students and postdoctorates in this program element is supporting the needed stream of the next-generation talent of scientists and engineers that is needed for the entire U.S. S&T research and industrial base, and this is highly commendable.
It was apparent that the selection of projects is mostly a bottom-up one, where the PMs exercise a lot of discretion and authority regarding project selection and funding decisions with minimal direction from above aimed at transitions to the Army. While the PMs are all well qualified for their positions to seek and pose bold scientific thrust areas, engagement with the Army laboratories in pursuing discovery and fundamental science supporting Army functional concepts seems unbalanced.
Scientific Opportunity
The projects highlighted were uniformly of high quality, albeit only a small percentage of the entire portfolio was presented. Accordingly, this presentation format makes it more difficult to assess which future opportunities may have been missed, and how impactful these funded areas will be over time is unclear.
The lack of advanced new disruptive materials focused projects is apparent. Predictive modeling linking processing to structure to properties to performance in materials remains a clear area for fundamental research topics and present fruitful areas for new research.
Significant Accomplishments
Accomplishments are excellent in terms of traditional scientific metrics—such as peer-reviewed articles in top journals, support of researchers, and education of the next generation of scientists and engineers to provide potential new staff entering Army S&T employment. These metrics could effectively be supplemented with others—for example, long-term impact on Army transitions and citations to assess research impact more broadly. The near-field radiative transfer project is an example of an excellent project. The significant accomplishments here are the first experimental demonstration of near-field photonic cooling (without laser light) using a custom-fabricated nanocalorimetric device and a photodiode as well as the demonstration of a 100-fold enhancement in far-field heat transfer rates via nanostructuring of radiating surfaces.
Partnerships and Transitions
Collaborations, within ARL as well as with other organizations, are extensive and part of the culture. Given the portfolio presented and the focus of the thrust areas briefed, it remains unclear how the changes in the Army S&T investments enacted, with the future Army functional concepts, is currently being supported by the current Materials Science Division research portfolio. In particular, the lack of emphasis on investment in fundamental materials R&D in areas owned by the Army asks this question: Where are the long-range research investments in innovative discovery research supporting the fundamental science underpinning Army functional concepts such as long-range precision fire, next-generation combat vehicles, and soldier lethality? It is true that detailed structural materials fundamental R&D for armor, warheads, and platforms is certainly too close to restricted areas of S&T owing to classification and therefore inappropriate to fundamental research and especially funding graduate students. However, there still remain many basic experimental and modeling fundamental science challenges linking processing to structure to properties and defects and their reproducibility of relevant Army structural materials absent at present in the world and clearly reflective of top-notch science problems. Breakthroughs in these areas of science can also pose the possibility of re-engaging American industry in running with scientific breakthroughs to the benefit of the Army large contractors building Army hardware and not simply importing it from overseas, such as the current high-hard armor example, among many.
Level of Effort
The Physical Properties of Materials budget of $34.52 million for FY 2017 to FY 2019 is the second largest of the four programs in the Materials Science Division, but the “cost per peer-reviewed publication” is about $77,000—which is the second lowest. PMs could assess whether the current focus of funding sources, with less fragmented portfolios, might provide a path to achieve more significant progress toward future Army transitions through funding of a reduced number of projects but funded at a higher individual level.
Other
ARO in the materials area is clearly funding high-quality science in its programs, but it appears that the programs could be more effective with a sharper focus on the transitions to the Army, especially in the science areas that the Army owns relative to the other branches of the DoD such as soldier lethality, future land-based vehicles, and long-range precision fire.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
The projects presented were uniformly of high quality, but only a small percentage of the entire portfolio was presented for review by the panel. The projects overall were found to be excellent in terms of collaborations and interdisciplinarity as well as scientific quality. Thus, it is hard to assess which opportunities may have been missed, and how successful connecting scientific discovery to Army functional concepts for these funded areas will be over time. Metrics for collaboration are high, with 15 active collaborative MURIs during FY 2017 to FY 2019. Secondary funding—for example, from DARPA—is the key to expanding programs leading to high scientific quality and transitions.
Overall, the Materials Science Division is conducting very high-quality research. The programs are driven, in an entrepreneurial manner, by well-qualified individual PMs who can take their programs in different directions without significant bureaucracy. However, these individual PMs need strategic positioning and appropriate incentives to coherently drive their programs for maximum transitions to the Army.
It was observed that many of the publications referenced in the presentations were funded by multiple funding agencies. This leveraging of funds is to be commended; however, with multiple support agencies, it is difficult to assess the impact ARO funding had on the research. A better metric of publications, one factoring in the dominant funding organization, would be more useful both to ARO and to a review panel.
Recommendation 6: The Army Research Office (ARO) should develop a publication metric that quantifies the extent of ARO funding to the publication. ARO should present this metric in future Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessement Board (ARLTAB) reviews. In addition, ARO should highlight in these reviews the key scientific advances attained primarily by ARO funding.
The programs funded by ARO are intended to be high-risk, high-payoff research projects that drive cutting-edge research and lead to disruptive science and technologies. This science plays an important role in innovation, in follow-on investments in STTR/SBIR programs, and in patent generation. Numerous metrics were provided but did not include metrics for patent-related activities.
Recommendation 7: The Army Research Office (ARO) should track the number of technology disclosures, patent applications, and patent issuances that have resulted from ARO-supported funding or collaborations.
The research strategy within the ARO Engineering Sciences Directorate seems to be principally a bottom-up organization, where the PMs have primary discretion and authority regarding project selection and funding decisions. The PMs are all well qualified for their positions. The directorate strategy is to pose bold scientific questions; to seek collaborations; to engage with the Army laboratories for transitioning the research; to seek out high-risk, high-reward opportunities; to venture into new areas with long-term impact on enhancing Army capabilities; and to hire and retain an excellent workforce. All of these items are meritorious. This strategy includes “casting a wide net,” even though funding levels are relatively small compared to peer organizations, such as DOE, NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, ONR, and so on. By having the PMs follow both directorate program planning and respective division strategy, transitions to the Army could be enhanced. Because the directorate investment is relatively small and the opportunities in engineering sciences are large, focusing on fewer research topics with greater funding on those identified could possibly result in greater benefit to the Army through transitions without loss of scientific excellence.
Recommendation 8: The Army Research Office (ARO) program managers (PMs) should be encouraged to prioritize directorate and division strategy with respect to focusing project selection by further improving the connection of scientific discovery to Army transitions.
All of the programs have listed the transitions; however, no quantitative metric of transitions was presented and no information about how transitions are evaluated or used in program planning was presented. Transitions appear to be an important metric of the effectiveness of the scientific programs and are highlighted in the Directorate Planning Program as program assessment.
Recommendation 9: The Army Research Office (ARO) should develop a transition metric that quantifies the effectiveness and importance of transitions to the Army and use this metric as a guide in the selection of future projects. ARO should present this metric in future Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB) reviews.
