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Megalibraries: Supercharged acceleration of materials discovery

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Abstract

Megalibraries are centimeter-scale chips containing millions to billions of individual materials each with an individually addressable position, composition, and size. Megalibraries will accelerate both the synthesis and characterization steps required for new material discoveries. Here, we review the key nanolithography developments that enable megalibrary synthesis and highlight the superior level of synthetic control within individual particles made possible by miniaturizing reactors to the nanoscale and performing chemistry confined to attoliter volumes. Massive parallelization of tip-defined materials synthesis offers control over thousands to millions of unique nanomaterials simultaneously, and then properties of interest can be rapidly screened. Unexplored materials can be readily surveyed and discovered using megalibraries, generating unprecedentedly large amounts of data that can be used to train machine learning algorithms. This approach is poised to revolutionize materials discovery that can be further amplified with highly autonomous design strategies.

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Acknowledgments

Research was sponsored by the Army Research Office and was accomplished under Grant No. W911NF-23-1-0141 and W911NF-23-1-0285. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Office or the US Government. The US Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation herein. This work was also supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc., and the Toyota Research Institute, Inc. P.T.S. gratefully acknowledges support from the Weinberg Family Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Funding

Army Research Office, W911NF-23-1-0141, Chad A. Mirkin, W911NF-23-1-0285, Chad A. Mirkin, Toyota Research Institute, Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA

    Peter T. Smith, Jenny K. Hedlund Orbeck & Chad A. Mirkin

  2. International Institute for Nanotechnology, Evanston, USA

    Peter T. Smith, Carolin B. Wahl, Jenny K. Hedlund Orbeck & Chad A. Mirkin

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA

    Carolin B. Wahl & Chad A. Mirkin

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  1. Peter T. Smith
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  2. Carolin B. Wahl
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Correspondence to Chad A. Mirkin.

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C.A.M. has financial interests in Mattiq, Inc., which could potentially benefit from the outcomes of this research.

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Smith, P.T., Wahl, C.B., Orbeck, J.K.H. et al. Megalibraries: Supercharged acceleration of materials discovery. MRS Bulletin 48, 1172–1183 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-023-00619-z

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