Director's Welcome
Welcome to the sites of the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute. The Institute, soon approaching its 60th anniversary, continues to excel in many aspects of advanced materials at the interface or at the heart of soft matter R&D. With the start of 2023, the AMLCI continues to see upgrades and transformations throughout our two campus locations, in the LCM Building and in the lower level of the ISB. New branding and wayfinding signage now synchronize the feel and look of the two locations. The state-of-the-art X-ray scattering facility now provides options utilizing in operandi tools such as polarized optical microscopy and 3-D printing, and the Cleanroom Research & Prototyping Facility will see the installation of an atomic layer deposition instrument as part of the Semiconductor Education and Research Program for Ohio funded by Intel. Furthermore, in the Spring of 2023, the AMLCI, jointly with the Brain Health Research Institute (BHRI) will use a substantial investment made possible by the recent KSU Game Changer Pilot Funding Program to install a unique Non-linear Optical Microscope in the lower level of the ISB including second and third harmonic generation as well as coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy.
In addition to these instrumental infrastructure upgrades, the AMLCI continues to hold its annual Materials Day in late April with the theme for 2023 focusing on Chirality and Optical Activity featuring an exciting list of invited and keynote speakers. In the summer of 2023, we will again welcome NSF-REU students to the Institute as well as the first cohort of the Intel Summer School, where the AMLCI involvement will focus on experiential learning in our Cleanroom facilities. Finally, in the Fall of 2023, the AMLCI will start a series of new events, an Industry Partners and Alumni Day, where we will also run our first Start-Up & Ideation Challenge jointly with the Design Invitation Initiative at KSU.
I am excited to see where we are heading and trust that our continued commitment to facility and infrastructure improvements as well as educational and outreach activities will position us well for the years to come.
