IRG 1 Leaders:
Paul Voyles
Room: 219
Materials Science and Engineering
1509 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 265-6740
paul.voyles@wisc.edu
Izabela Szlufarska
Room: 262
Materials Science and Engineering
1509 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 262-1821
szlufarska@wisc.edu
More group members
This group works to understand and predict mobility in glasses and supercooled liquids with atomic resolution over timescales of seconds or longer. They conduct unique, nanoscale, time-resolved experiments and simulations leveraging new methods in physics-aware, machine-learning.
The combination of atomic resolution and long times will lead to fundamental understanding of glass behavior including viscosity, fragility, and relaxation, as well as the ability to predict crucial glass properties such as plasticity and impurity diffusion from composition and thermal history.
The IRG’s scientific developments will enable rational design of organic and inorganic glasses, which the group will leverage to create high-mobility, anisotropic organic semiconductor glass films for organic electronics and stabilized, confined, drug molecule glasses for pharmaceutical preparations.
IRG 1 News and Highlights
(2025) Geometrically Accurate Coarse-Graining with AniSOAP
Wisconsin MRSEC researchers have developed a coarse-graining technique called AniSOAP (for anisotropic smooth overlap of atomic potentials) that gives the beads shapes that reflect the shape of the molecules they represent. This simple idea – carefully implemented to be mathematically rigorous and account for how molecules typically interact – can used for high-accuracy coarse grained simulations or to understand materials behavior that depends on molecular shape or orientation. AniSOAP is also particularly useful for machine learning analysis of molecular behavior using simple, physically-interpretable algorithms, producing new insight for researchers.
October 13, 2025
(2025) A Nanoscale View of Molecule Alignment in an Organic Semiconductor
Wisconsin MRSEC researchers have developed a new way to see how molecules fit together with an electron microscope. They used the method to see how molecules rearrange when an organic semiconductor is heated. A modest change in temperature creates significantly improved molecular alignment. The improved alignment is reflected in both larger aligned regions and straighter lines of molecules inside each region.
October 7, 2025
(2024) Control of Glass Structure and Properties with Soft Substrates
Physical vapor deposition (PVD) canproduce glassthinfilmswith preferred orientation to the molecules andhigherdensitythan ordinaryliquid-quenchedglass bytakingadvantageofthefastmovementoforiented moleculesonthe glasssurface. Research supported by Wisconsin MRSEC have found a new way to control the structure and properties of these films by growing them on soft substrates. PVD on a soft substrate can produce glass thin films that are much more dense and stable than those deposited on rigid substrates. A film deposited on a soft substrate in 2 hours is equivalent to a film deposited extremely slowly on rigid substrates over ~3000 years.
October 7, 2025
Hagopian Presents at Microscopy and Microanalysis Conference
The MSREC Honored Scholar Travel Award enabled Nicholas Hagopian to attend the 2024 Microscopy and Microanalysis conference held in Cleveland, Ohio. Hagopian, a PhD student in the Voyles group, conducts research on characterizing materials and …
October 30, 2024
- More IRG 1 posts