Dr. Brian C. Berry, assistant professor of organic chemistry at UALR’s College of Science and Mathematics, has received a National Science Foundation grant of $150,000 over three years to help develop what could be the next generation of memory storage media.

The goal of the project is to understand the fundamentals of a process known as cold zone annealing, a process developed during Berry’s post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In metallurgy and materials science, annealing is a heat treatment in which a material is altered, causing changes in its properties such as strength and hardness.

“Cold zoning annealing is an efficient method for creating highly ordered self-assembled nanostructures from block copolymers,” Berry said. “These nanostructures can then be used to create high density memory storage media, functional photonic materials, or other materials which will enable next generation technologies.”

Berry is working in collaboration with Dr. Alamgir Karim in the College of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Akron. The total project award is $450,000 over three years.