ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | NOVEMBER 2026 5 RESEARCH TRACKS DESIGNING ORGANIC MATERIALS WITH DATA AND AI A new data-driven, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled approach is being developed by Iowa State University’s Wenjie Xia and partner research teams from MIT, the University of Southern Mississippi, and the University of Windsor in Canada. Collaborative research grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada are funding the project. A fouryear, $879,911 NSF grant is supporting Xia, an associate professor of aerospace engineering, and his group’s work to develop computational modeling and data-driven tools and techniques for the project. Key to the project’s success is understanding the relationship between the molecular structure of the materials and their physical properties and performance. The project focuses on organic, mixed ionic-electronic conducting polymers, which can conduct electronic charge while also transporting ions. Combining electronic conductivity and ion transport is particularly important for bioelectronic applications and can enable a broader range of device functions. By tuning molecular structure and processing conditions, these coupled electronic and ionic transport properties can be controlled to optimize device performance. Researchers say such materials could help create lightweight, flexible, and even stretchable low-cost devices for applications such as flexible electronics, wear- able sensors, and bio- electronics. Xia will lead the Iowa State team working on the computational and data-driven modeling of materials from the molecular scales to their resulting properties. The University of Windsor group will tackle design and synthesis of the most promising materials. The University of Southern Mississippi will lead the materials processing effort, and the MIT group will spearhead device fabrication and testing. iastate.edu. GRANT SUPPORTS PEROVSKITE SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING Researchers at Georgia Tech and Albany State University, both in Georgia, received a $1.3 million award through the National Science Foundation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Excellence in Research program. The project will advance manufacturing methods for perovskite semiconduc- tors, with potential applications in solar energy, photonics, electronics, and quantum technologies. The threeyear project, “CloseSpace Sublimation for Scalable Perovskite Optoelectronics Manufacturing,” is led by Liqiu Zheng, assistant professor of physics at Albany State, and Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering. Albany State and Georgia Tech will jointly study thin-film growth, structure, and device performance. Georgia Tech researchers will support Albany State as the team acquires and begins using new equipment, sharing expertise in operation, data collection, and analysis. Students will receive hands-on training in thin-film deposition, x-ray characterization, solar cell fabrication, and data analysis. The project also includes exchanges between Georgia Tech and Albany State, giving students access to research facilities, expertise, and collaborative research opportunities at both institutions. The research focuses on a manu- facturing technique known as closespace sublimation. Researchers typically produce perovskite thin films using liquid inks. Close-space sublimation instead uses heat to transport material as vapor across a short distance. The team will investigate whether the approach can be adapted for perovskite materials, potentially enabling faster, more material-efficient, and more scalable manufacturing. gatech.edu. Researchers led by Iowa State’s Wenjie Xia are discovering new conducting materials. Courtesy of Christopher Gannon/Iowa State University. Illustration of metal halide perovskites. Courtesy of JuanPablo Correa-Baena/Georgia Tech.
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