SI2-SSE: Cloud-Computing-Clusters for Scientific Research

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is made on a proposal to the Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation. The Office of Cyberinfrastructure and the Division of Materials Research contribute funds to this award. This award supports developing an internet-based scientific computing environment, particularly for computational materials research. The PI will advance into computational materials research a recent innovation known as cloud computing ? the ability to utilize computer resources connected via the internet, which may be geographically separated by vast distances, on demand to do computing. The PI will develop a computing environment that will be robust, flexible, and relatively easy for the materials research community to use. The PI will focus on specific codes that calculate the states of electrons in materials starting from the identities of the atoms in the material and their positions. Forces between atoms may be calculated from the electronic states. These codes will be used in the short term to calculate complicated motions of atoms and molecules, to understand data from experiments that involve scattering light from materials, to study how specific materials absorb and interact with light to advance solar cell technology. This award also supports education and outreach activities to enable the research community to effectively use the new computational tools developed under this award, and expose high school students to cutting edge advances in computation.