AI-guided synthesis of two-dimensional materials, jointly with Germany — two budget codes, one for international cooperation, $1.44M to Penn State

1Two budget codes on one record

This record carries two budget codes: 47.049 for mathematical and physical sciences, and 47.079 for international science and engineering.

Of the 120 NSF awards this site holds as of 2026-09-01, 17 carry more than one budget code, meaning several offices are funding the same research together. Counting by field from a single code would not count such records correctly.

2The international side shows in the title

The title carries NSF-DFG, DFG being the German research funding organisation. That the second budget code covers international science and engineering corresponds to the notation in the title.

In the record, the source of the money and the frame of the research appear in separate fields. The budget code shows that international cooperation funding is involved; the title shows who the counterpart is. Neither field alone gives the character of the award.

3A real-time optical diagnostic is the named innovation

The abstract names as a key innovation the development of a real-time optical diagnostic that monitors continuously, a means of controlling growth while watching a film form.

Measuring while making rather than after making. Against the challenge of producing atomically thin material reproducibly over large areas, that difference is considerable. Combining synthesis, monitoring, characterisation, multiscale simulation and data science reads as the arrangement for turning that loop. The period runs four years, from 2026-10-01 to 2030-09-30.

4Measuring while making

What this project combines is five things: synthesis, monitoring, characterisation, multi-scale simulation and data science. Rather than making and then measuring, the design turns a loop that measures while making and feeds the result back into the next set of conditions.

1. 1SynthesisGrow a film of two-dimensional material
2. 2Real-time optical diagnosticsMonitor the growth continuously as it happens
3. 3CharacterisationMeasure the properties of the film produced
4. 4Multi-scale simulationCarry the observations into computational models
5. 5Data scienceReturn the result to the next set of synthesis conditions

The problem is making a material a few atoms thick, reproducibly, across a large area. Making once and measuring afterwards leaves no way to tell which conditions worked, so inserting monitoring to close the loop is named as the principal innovation.