Copp Wins Army Early Career Grant for Materials Research

Sept. 24, 2024 - Stacy Copp, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, has received an Early Career Program grant from the U.S. Army Development Command/Army Research Laboratory. Copp will receive $990,000 over five years to develop DNA-enabled nanotechnologies for creating atomically precise materials.

The Early Career Program supports basic research contributing to Army modernization needs conducted by outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their careers at historically Black colleges and universities and/or minority-serving institutions.

Her research will advance the state of the art for producing atomically precise nanophotonics, by taking a “bottom-up” approach, assembling single atoms and molecules into larger nanostructures. The results will benefit a wide range of future applications including smart materials systems for advanced reconfigurable photonics and biomolecular sensing platforms, nanotechnologies used in health care, nanomanufacturing and national security.

Copp says that conventional materials fabrication methods are not well-suited for achieving complex materials that are ordered across multiple length scales. “We will overcome this major challenge by harnessing DNA’s ability to organize tiny metallic particles,” she said, “allowing us to create materials whose structures are defined to atomic precision.”  

– Lori Brandt