Self-Driving Labs for Polymer Research across Scales

 

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The development of advanced materials is extremely slow considering the pressing needs presented by societal challenges. A major reason for this pace is the vastness of possible compositions/processing conditions that must be navigated as part of the discovery/design/development process. Our work focuses on accelerating polymer research through the use of self-driving labs (SDL), or the combination of automation to perform experiments without human intervention and machine learning to select experiments that best progress toward a user-defined goal. In this talk, we overview our progress applying SDLs in three areas of polymer research. First, we discuss our work developing materials that absorb mechanical energy. Tough materials and architectures are ubiquitous as protective equipment and structural elements, but are difficult to model due to the relevance of extreme mechanical effects. We developed an SDL that combines additive manufacturing and mechanical testing to explore the toughness of-3D printed components. We highlight our key learnings using this system including benchmarking the acceleration inherent to SDLs and achieving world-record mechanical performance. Second, we overview a newly developed strategy for optimizing the functional properties of polymer thin films using a self-driving lab. Finally, we introduce recent efforts to develop an integrated network of instruments that enable automated synthesis and characterization of a diverse array of polymer samples. We conclude with an outlook for how self-driving labs are expected to revolutionize the pace of progress across the spectrum of materials research.

 

Keith A. Brown is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, and Physics at Boston University. He is also the Associate Chair for Graduate Programs in Mechanical Engineering. He earned an S.B. in Physics from MIT, a Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Harvard University with Robert M. Westervelt, and was an International Institute for Nanotechnology postdoctoral fellow with Chad A. Mirkin at Northwestern University. The KABlab studies approaches to accelerate the development of advanced materials and structures with a focus on polymers. The group employs self- driving labs, additive manufacturing, miniaturization of experiments using scanning probe techniques, and novel platforms for parallel materials development to achieve these goals. Keith has co-authored 122 peer-reviewed publications, six issued patents, and his work has been recognized through awards including the Frontiers of Materials Award from The Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society (TMS), a Google Faculty Research Award, being recognized as a “Future Star of the AVS,” the Omar Farha Award for Research Leadership from Northwestern University, and the AVS Nanometer-Scale Science and Technology Division Postdoctoral Award. Keith served on the Nano Letters Early Career Advisory Board, co-organized a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Workshop on AI for Scientific Discovery, was co-chair of the fall 2024 meeting of the Material Research Society (MRS), and is the inaugural chair of the MRS Artificial Intelligence Topical Community.