Center for Materials for Water and Energy Systems (M-WET)

Director

Benny Freeman

Lead Institution

University of Texas at Austin

Class

2018-2026

Mission

To discover and understand the fundamental science necessary to design new membrane materials and develop tools and knowledge to predict new materials’ interactions with targeted solutes to provide fit for purpose water from low quality water sources and recover valuable solutes with less energy.

Partner Institutions

UT Austin
UC Santa Barbara
LBNL

Quick Facts

Single Slide Overview
Technical Summary
https://mwet.utexas.edu/

BES Staff Contact

Philip Wilk

Grand Challenges Addressed

Transformative Opportunities Addressed

Mastering Hierarchical Architectures and Beyond-Equilibrium Matter

Trans. Opp. #1

Understanding the Critical Roles of Heterogeneity, Interfaces, and Disorder

Trans. Opp. #2

Revolutionary Advances in Models, Mathematics, Algorithms, Data, and Computing

Trans. Opp. #4

Exploiting Transformative Advances in Imaging Capabilities across Multiple Scales

Trans. Opp. #5

BES Reports Addressed

Highlights

View all Highlights

A metallic line atop a medium biased at the edge of chaos can provide effective negative resistance for time-varying signals, outputting a larger signal compared to its input. The energy for amplification comes from the static bias applied to the medium.

The “Edge of Chaos” Amplifies Signals Without Transistors

Emulating the edge of chaos of axons enables a metal wire to overcome its resistance without cooling, thereby amplifying signals flowing inside of it.

Infrared laser light (red beam) illuminates the surface of ZrSiSe and mixes with electron oscillations enabled by an atomic force microscope (silver cone), propagating light as ray-like structures that guide the light through the interior (blue zig-zag).

What If Metals Could Conduct Light?

In the unusual world of quantum materials, metals can guide light in their interiors instead of merely reflecting it.