The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announces the fourth annual call for ideas for flexible funding grants as part of the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiative (EPiQS).
Through the EPiQS initiative, the foundation strives to accelerate progress in the field of quantum materials — solids and engineered structures characterized by novel quantum phases of matter and exotic cooperative behaviors of electrons. Flexible funding grants enable the initiative to respond in a timely manner to emerging opportunities in this field of research.
Description of Flexible Funding Grants
The goal of flexible funding grants is to drive scientific innovation by enhancing experimental capabilities at leading research institutions and support timely projects with the potential to make breakthroughs in the studies and discovery of quantum materials. These grants have two varieties: equipment grants and rapid response grants.
- Equipment grants support the development of sophisticated and sometimes one-of-a-kind instrumentation at institutions with active research programs in quantum materials.
- Rapid response grants support exceptionally timely projects with a very high potential impact. These projects may include experimental tests of novel important theoretical concepts and innovative, as well as unconventional research endeavors that are unlikely to be supported through traditional funding channels due to their high-risk nature.
The total budget for flexible funding grants is about $19 million for the period 2020-2024. We anticipate that the 2023 call for ideas will result in three funded projects and that grant sizes will be between $0.5-1.5 million. The grant duration can be up to 36 months.
Eligibility Criteria
We are looking for the best ideas and are committed to designing a review process that focuses on the quality of ideas and minimizes bias. We encourage applications from individuals regardless of their age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, religion, or disability.
Any scientist with a permanent appointment at a university or another research institution is eligible to submit their project idea. This includes tenured, tenure-track, and research faculty, as well as research staff members at United States national laboratories, other government-funded research laboratories, and independent research institutes. International applications are also accepted and will be evaluated on equal footing with those submitted by United States scientists.
Researchers should submit their project ideas individually through this application portal. Budgets, cover letters, or official institutional endorsements are not required at this time. However, we strongly encourage applicants to review the foundation's indirect cost policy and verify that their institution can comply with this policy. There are no restrictions on the number of applications from any given institution.
Applicants can submit only one flexible funding project idea as a principal investigator (PI). In addition, an applicant can serve as a co-investigator (Co-I) on three additional project idea proposed by another PI. Both single-investigator and multi-investigator projects will be considered. In the case of a multi-investigator project, only one investigator (the PI) should submit the idea, whether or not the investigators reside at the same institution.
Current Moore Foundation grantees, both those funded through EPiQS and those outside of EPiQS, are eligible to apply, with the following exceptions: (1) Materials Synthesis Investigators and Experimental Investigators selected in the 2019-2020 EPiQS Investigator competitions and PIs of current flexible funding grants cannot apply as PIs; however, they can be listed as Co-Is. (2) Grantees whose grant reporting requirements have not been met (e.g., they have outstanding overdue grant reports or are in other violation of terms of their Grant Award Letter Agreements) are not eligible to apply as PIs or Co-Is.
Scientific and Technical Scope
Candidates are invited to submit ideas in one of the two categories:
- Equipment grant: Development of complex instrumentation for synthesis and/or experimental investigations of quantum materials, which has the potential to significantly elevate the level of scientific research at your institution and beyond;
- Rapid response grant: A high-risk, high-impact project that presents a timely opportunity to advance understanding of quantum materials or produce new discoveries in the field. The research project can be experimental, theoretical, or a combination of the two.
If your idea is relevant to both grant categories, please use the following guideline: if your estimated budget would allocate more than 50 percent of the funds toward equipment acquisition, choose the equipment grant category; if equipment acquisition presents 50 percent or less of the estimated budget, choose the rapid response category.
The classes of materials of interest to EPiQS are:
- Strongly correlated systems, including but not limited to high-Tc and other unconventional superconductors, Mott insulators, heavy fermion systems, multiferroics, and correlated oxide heterostructures;
- Frustrated magnets and other solids exhibiting exotic magnetic behavior;
- Materials exhibiting topological order;
- Two-dimensional crystals and layered systems, including but not limited to graphene, dichalcogenide monolayers, and van der Waals heterostructures;
- Other low-dimensional systems, including but not limited to quantum wells and quantum wires with emergent electronic properties;
Organic-based materials exhibiting emergent electronic properties and synthetic quantum materials created in physical platforms such as cold-atom and circuit-QED systems are not eligible for the 2023 call. EPiQS is primarily concerned with advancing the fundamental understanding of emergent properties of quantum materials; therefore, ideas focused on devices or near-term practical applications of materials will receive lower priority or may be excluded from the review process. Ideas with research goals very similar to previously funded flexible projects will not be considered for funding.
For your reference, below are brief descriptions of the flexible funding projects selected for funding in the previous three years:
- Development of a microscope with zeptowatt power sensitivity to image atomic-scale energy dissipation in quantum materials by measuring the oscillations of a scanned micro-cantilever. The project's scientific goals include understanding the role of fluctuations in new phases of matter and quantifying losses for classical or quantum information processing.
- Development of an interferometric magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) spectrometer in the terahertz frequency range with an unprecedented precision of 10-8 radians. The instrument will cover characteristic energy scales relevant to some of the most exciting quantum materials, including topological insulators and twisted bilayer graphene, providing important insights into these systems' intricate emerging phases of matter.
- Development of new techniques for rapid in-situ twist angle and strain tuning at the interfaces between atomically thin materials. These techniques will take advantage of the low friction at these interfaces and use electrical signals to drive motion. Tuning the properties of the interfaces will allow precise exploration of twist-dependent quantum phases, such as superconductivity. It will create a new class of electro-mechanical devices that can be used as tunable circuit components.
- Imaging of the nanoscale flow of electrons in strongly correlated two-dimensional materials and other low-dimensional systems using nitrogen-vacancy center scanning microscopy with 5-nm spatial resolution, as well as the development of new theoretical methods to analyze these images within the frameworks of strange metals, electron hydrodynamics, and quantum criticality. This work will provide a unique perspective on long-standing mysteries of electric transport in materials, including Planckian dissipation observed in many strongly correlated materials.
- Development of a comprehensive and predictive theory of correlated electrons in twisted two-dimensional materials, particularly twisted bilayer graphene. The project's primary focus will be identifying conditions favorable for fractional topological states at zero applied magnetic field.
- Development of a cryogenic two-electron angle-resolved photoemission spectrometer, which will measure the energy and momentum of entangled pairs of electrons emitted from a material upon absorption of a single photon. The instrument will enable the determination of two-particle spectral functions and directly identify the origin of electron pairing and correlated phases in quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductors and strange metals.
- Investigation of atomically thin twisted cuprate structures, which have been predicted to exhibit topological superconductivity with high superconducting transition temperatures. Topological superconductors can host Majorana bound states whose braiding operation can protect quantum information against decoherence.
- Development of tunable epitaxially-grown cadmium arsenide heterostructures to realize two-dimensional topological insulators. The project’s goals include manipulating helical edge states using constrictions and interferometers and coupling these states to superconductors, ultimately allowing for electrical detection of interactions and novel non-abelian quasiparticle states.
- Development of a cryogenic electrochemical reactor to deposit thin films of high-temperature hydrogen chalcogenide superconductors, using epitaxy to stabilize at ambient pressure materials whose synthesis otherwise requires over a million atmospheres of pressure. This work will break new ground in cryogenic electrochemistry, non-aqueous acid-base chemistry, and quantum materials synthesis.
- Development of a novel “temporal telescope” for creating monochromated, high-brightness electron beams for electron energy loss spectroscopy. This instrument will measure the charge response function in strongly correlated electron systems and high-temperature cuprate superconductors. Such measurements will quantify the role of the Coulomb interaction in these materials and place strong, energetic constraints on theories describing these compounds.
- Development of an integrated experimental platform for optical spectroscopic and microscopic studies of quantum materials at millikelvin temperatures. The instrument will search for and characterize novel quantum electronic phases in strongly correlated two-dimensional materials.
Selection process and criteria
The selection of flexible funding projects will have two stages. This call for ideas is the initial stage, whose goal is to collect brief descriptions of innovative projects. The ideas submitted through this application portal will be subjected to a dual-anonymous peer review process, in which candidates’ identities will be concealed from the reviewers and vice versa. At this stage, we are focused on evaluating the quality and potential impact of the ideas rather than the applicants' track record. About twenty highest-ranked ideas will be selected for the pre-proposal stage. After another round of dual-anonymous peer review, a small number of the pre-proposals will be selected for the final, full-proposal stage. The full proposals will be reviewed by an expert panel. In the final stage of the review, the identities of the finalists will be revealed to the panelists, so they can verify the applicant’s ability to carry forth the proposed projects.
The ideas will be selected for the next stage in the selection process based on the following main criteria:
- The potential of the proposed experimental instrumentation to enable novel or superior approaches to probing the fundamental properties of quantum materials and/or to the synthesis of novel quantum materials (equipment grant ideas);
- The extent to which the proposed instrumentation brings benefits to multiple researchers at a given institution and beyond (equipment grant ideas);
- Applicant's willingness to take risks to explore unproven and uncertain research avenues with potentially transformative impact (rapid response grant ideas);
- The extent to which the proposed project is timely, i.e., responds to a recently emerged opportunity in the field (both types of grant ideas).
Accommodation Statement
This competition is open to all qualified applicants, regardless of age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, religion, or disability. If you have any questions or need assistance or accommodation in completing this call for ideas, please contact us at EPiQS@moore.org.
Application process and timeline
As the first step, please register as a user of the Apply portal if you have not done so in the past. During the registration process, please enter an email address that you frequently check, as we will use this email address to contact you with updates. After registering as an Apply user, enter the portal to start your idea submission. Details of the proposed ideas will be held confidential, and members of the external reviewer cohort will sign confidentiality agreements before reviewing any applicant material. The foundation will collaborate with selected awardees and their host institutions on agreeable language to be shared in announcements of the award winners.
Friday, May 5, 2023, 9 PM PT Call for ideas deadline.
Week of August 21, 2023 Selection of ideas.
Week of September 24, 2023 Submission of pre-proposals.
Week of November 17, 2023 Finalists selected.
Week of January 15, 2024 Awardees selected.
Spring 2024 2023 Flexible funding grants announced.
Should you have any questions about the submission process, please contact us at EPiQS@moore.org
EPiQS Flexible Funding Ideas 2023
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announces the fourth annual call for ideas for flexible funding grants as part of the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiative (EPiQS).
Through the EPiQS initiative, the foundation strives to accelerate progress in the field of quantum materials — solids and engineered structures characterized by novel quantum phases of matter and exotic cooperative behaviors of electrons. Flexible funding grants enable the initiative to respond in a timely manner to emerging opportunities in this field of research.
Description of Flexible Funding Grants
The goal of flexible funding grants is to drive scientific innovation by enhancing experimental capabilities at leading research institutions and support timely projects with the potential to make breakthroughs in the studies and discovery of quantum materials. These grants have two varieties: equipment grants and rapid response grants.
- Equipment grants support the development of sophisticated and sometimes one-of-a-kind instrumentation at institutions with active research programs in quantum materials.
- Rapid response grants support exceptionally timely projects with a very high potential impact. These projects may include experimental tests of novel important theoretical concepts and innovative, as well as unconventional research endeavors that are unlikely to be supported through traditional funding channels due to their high-risk nature.
The total budget for flexible funding grants is about $19 million for the period 2020-2024. We anticipate that the 2023 call for ideas will result in three funded projects and that grant sizes will be between $0.5-1.5 million. The grant duration can be up to 36 months.
Eligibility Criteria
We are looking for the best ideas and are committed to designing a review process that focuses on the quality of ideas and minimizes bias. We encourage applications from individuals regardless of their age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, religion, or disability.
Any scientist with a permanent appointment at a university or another research institution is eligible to submit their project idea. This includes tenured, tenure-track, and research faculty, as well as research staff members at United States national laboratories, other government-funded research laboratories, and independent research institutes. International applications are also accepted and will be evaluated on equal footing with those submitted by United States scientists.
Researchers should submit their project ideas individually through this application portal. Budgets, cover letters, or official institutional endorsements are not required at this time. However, we strongly encourage applicants to review the foundation's indirect cost policy and verify that their institution can comply with this policy. There are no restrictions on the number of applications from any given institution.
Applicants can submit only one flexible funding project idea as a principal investigator (PI). In addition, an applicant can serve as a co-investigator (Co-I) on three additional project idea proposed by another PI. Both single-investigator and multi-investigator projects will be considered. In the case of a multi-investigator project, only one investigator (the PI) should submit the idea, whether or not the investigators reside at the same institution.
Current Moore Foundation grantees, both those funded through EPiQS and those outside of EPiQS, are eligible to apply, with the following exceptions: (1) Materials Synthesis Investigators and Experimental Investigators selected in the 2019-2020 EPiQS Investigator competitions and PIs of current flexible funding grants cannot apply as PIs; however, they can be listed as Co-Is. (2) Grantees whose grant reporting requirements have not been met (e.g., they have outstanding overdue grant reports or are in other violation of terms of their Grant Award Letter Agreements) are not eligible to apply as PIs or Co-Is.
Scientific and Technical Scope
Candidates are invited to submit ideas in one of the two categories:
- Equipment grant: Development of complex instrumentation for synthesis and/or experimental investigations of quantum materials, which has the potential to significantly elevate the level of scientific research at your institution and beyond;
- Rapid response grant: A high-risk, high-impact project that presents a timely opportunity to advance understanding of quantum materials or produce new discoveries in the field. The research project can be experimental, theoretical, or a combination of the two.
If your idea is relevant to both grant categories, please use the following guideline: if your estimated budget would allocate more than 50 percent of the funds toward equipment acquisition, choose the equipment grant category; if equipment acquisition presents 50 percent or less of the estimated budget, choose the rapid response category.
The classes of materials of interest to EPiQS are:
- Strongly correlated systems, including but not limited to high-Tc and other unconventional superconductors, Mott insulators, heavy fermion systems, multiferroics, and correlated oxide heterostructures;
- Frustrated magnets and other solids exhibiting exotic magnetic behavior;
- Materials exhibiting topological order;
- Two-dimensional crystals and layered systems, including but not limited to graphene, dichalcogenide monolayers, and van der Waals heterostructures;
- Other low-dimensional systems, including but not limited to quantum wells and quantum wires with emergent electronic properties;
Organic-based materials exhibiting emergent electronic properties and synthetic quantum materials created in physical platforms such as cold-atom and circuit-QED systems are not eligible for the 2023 call. EPiQS is primarily concerned with advancing the fundamental understanding of emergent properties of quantum materials; therefore, ideas focused on devices or near-term practical applications of materials will receive lower priority or may be excluded from the review process. Ideas with research goals very similar to previously funded flexible projects will not be considered for funding.
For your reference, below are brief descriptions of the flexible funding projects selected for funding in the previous three years:
- Development of a microscope with zeptowatt power sensitivity to image atomic-scale energy dissipation in quantum materials by measuring the oscillations of a scanned micro-cantilever. The project's scientific goals include understanding the role of fluctuations in new phases of matter and quantifying losses for classical or quantum information processing.
- Development of an interferometric magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) spectrometer in the terahertz frequency range with an unprecedented precision of 10-8 radians. The instrument will cover characteristic energy scales relevant to some of the most exciting quantum materials, including topological insulators and twisted bilayer graphene, providing important insights into these systems' intricate emerging phases of matter.
- Development of new techniques for rapid in-situ twist angle and strain tuning at the interfaces between atomically thin materials. These techniques will take advantage of the low friction at these interfaces and use electrical signals to drive motion. Tuning the properties of the interfaces will allow precise exploration of twist-dependent quantum phases, such as superconductivity. It will create a new class of electro-mechanical devices that can be used as tunable circuit components.
- Imaging of the nanoscale flow of electrons in strongly correlated two-dimensional materials and other low-dimensional systems using nitrogen-vacancy center scanning microscopy with 5-nm spatial resolution, as well as the development of new theoretical methods to analyze these images within the frameworks of strange metals, electron hydrodynamics, and quantum criticality. This work will provide a unique perspective on long-standing mysteries of electric transport in materials, including Planckian dissipation observed in many strongly correlated materials.
- Development of a comprehensive and predictive theory of correlated electrons in twisted two-dimensional materials, particularly twisted bilayer graphene. The project's primary focus will be identifying conditions favorable for fractional topological states at zero applied magnetic field.
- Development of a cryogenic two-electron angle-resolved photoemission spectrometer, which will measure the energy and momentum of entangled pairs of electrons emitted from a material upon absorption of a single photon. The instrument will enable the determination of two-particle spectral functions and directly identify the origin of electron pairing and correlated phases in quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductors and strange metals.
- Investigation of atomically thin twisted cuprate structures, which have been predicted to exhibit topological superconductivity with high superconducting transition temperatures. Topological superconductors can host Majorana bound states whose braiding operation can protect quantum information against decoherence.
- Development of tunable epitaxially-grown cadmium arsenide heterostructures to realize two-dimensional topological insulators. The project’s goals include manipulating helical edge states using constrictions and interferometers and coupling these states to superconductors, ultimately allowing for electrical detection of interactions and novel non-abelian quasiparticle states.
- Development of a cryogenic electrochemical reactor to deposit thin films of high-temperature hydrogen chalcogenide superconductors, using epitaxy to stabilize at ambient pressure materials whose synthesis otherwise requires over a million atmospheres of pressure. This work will break new ground in cryogenic electrochemistry, non-aqueous acid-base chemistry, and quantum materials synthesis.
- Development of a novel “temporal telescope” for creating monochromated, high-brightness electron beams for electron energy loss spectroscopy. This instrument will measure the charge response function in strongly correlated electron systems and high-temperature cuprate superconductors. Such measurements will quantify the role of the Coulomb interaction in these materials and place strong, energetic constraints on theories describing these compounds.
- Development of an integrated experimental platform for optical spectroscopic and microscopic studies of quantum materials at millikelvin temperatures. The instrument will search for and characterize novel quantum electronic phases in strongly correlated two-dimensional materials.
Selection process and criteria
The selection of flexible funding projects will have two stages. This call for ideas is the initial stage, whose goal is to collect brief descriptions of innovative projects. The ideas submitted through this application portal will be subjected to a dual-anonymous peer review process, in which candidates’ identities will be concealed from the reviewers and vice versa. At this stage, we are focused on evaluating the quality and potential impact of the ideas rather than the applicants' track record. About twenty highest-ranked ideas will be selected for the pre-proposal stage. After another round of dual-anonymous peer review, a small number of the pre-proposals will be selected for the final, full-proposal stage. The full proposals will be reviewed by an expert panel. In the final stage of the review, the identities of the finalists will be revealed to the panelists, so they can verify the applicant’s ability to carry forth the proposed projects.
The ideas will be selected for the next stage in the selection process based on the following main criteria:
- The potential of the proposed experimental instrumentation to enable novel or superior approaches to probing the fundamental properties of quantum materials and/or to the synthesis of novel quantum materials (equipment grant ideas);
- The extent to which the proposed instrumentation brings benefits to multiple researchers at a given institution and beyond (equipment grant ideas);
- Applicant's willingness to take risks to explore unproven and uncertain research avenues with potentially transformative impact (rapid response grant ideas);
- The extent to which the proposed project is timely, i.e., responds to a recently emerged opportunity in the field (both types of grant ideas).
Accommodation Statement
This competition is open to all qualified applicants, regardless of age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, religion, or disability. If you have any questions or need assistance or accommodation in completing this call for ideas, please contact us at EPiQS@moore.org.
Application process and timeline
As the first step, please register as a user of the Apply portal if you have not done so in the past. During the registration process, please enter an email address that you frequently check, as we will use this email address to contact you with updates. After registering as an Apply user, enter the portal to start your idea submission. Details of the proposed ideas will be held confidential, and members of the external reviewer cohort will sign confidentiality agreements before reviewing any applicant material. The foundation will collaborate with selected awardees and their host institutions on agreeable language to be shared in announcements of the award winners.
Friday, May 5, 2023, 9 PM PT Call for ideas deadline.
Week of August 21, 2023 Selection of ideas.
Week of September 24, 2023 Submission of pre-proposals.
Week of November 17, 2023 Finalists selected.
Week of January 15, 2024 Awardees selected.
Spring 2024 2023 Flexible funding grants announced.
Should you have any questions about the submission process, please contact us at EPiQS@moore.org