Pitt Engineer Susan Fullerton Wins $1.35 Million Moore Award to Measure Hidden Ion Layers in Atomically Thin Devices

At the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, a question that has lingered for more than a decade may finally be on the verge of an answer. Susan Fullerton, Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, has been named a 2026 Experimental Physics Investigator by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, one of just 21 researchers selected nationwide for the foundation’s 2026 cohort. The five-year award provides $1.35 million, with additional funding available for specialized equipment, and it is aimed squarely at a problem that has stubbornly resisted conventional approaches: directly measuring the invisible layer of ions that governs how a new class of ultra-low-power electronic devices actually works.

The Moore Foundation’s Experimental Physics Investigator initiative is deliberately structured to fund what traditional grant programs often cannot. Launched in 2022, the program is designed to back bold new directions and ambitious, potentially high-payoff projects that might struggle to attract this level and duration of support from conventional funding sources. It plans to support roughly 120 mid-career scientists across six annual cohorts, and it is open to researchers from any scientific discipline. The only requirement is that the core science be experimental physics, a bar that Fullerton clears through work that spans chemistry, materials science, and device physics all at once.

Fullerton leads the Nanoionics and Electronics Lab at Pitt, where her group pursues an idea that sounds almost paradoxical: using ions, the charged atoms and molecules more familiar from batteries and electrolytes, as active components inside electronic devices rather than as contaminants to be eliminated. Her winning project, titled “Structure and Dynamics of Electric Double Layers on Two-Dimensional Crystals,” focuses on what happens when ions are used to control charge in transistors built from molecularly thin materials, crystals just one or a few atoms thick.

The physics at the heart of the project is subtle. When ions are brought to the surface of a two-dimensional crystal, they arrange themselves into an electric double layer, an ultrathin, densely packed sheet of charge separation that sits directly against the transistor channel. This buried structure is what allows ions to gate, or switch, the flow of electrons through the device, and it is the reason ion-controlled devices can in principle operate at extraordinarily low power. Yet despite its central role, the double layer has never been directly measured. Researchers know it exists and can infer its effects from electrical behavior, but its precise geometry and dynamics remain hidden.

That gap between inference and observation is what has made device development in this field so dependent on trial and error. According to Fullerton, it is difficult to deliberately engineer these devices without knowing precisely where the ions are located or how they move. She has spent more than twelve years building ion-controlled devices while relying on theory and indirect clues to guide the design process. “Throughout my 12 years of research, colleagues have been asking me the same question: ‘Where are the ions?'” Fullerton said. “It’s difficult to answer – it’s like trying to measure the thickness of a single sheet of paper hidden in the middle of a giant textbook, but without opening the book.”

The Moore award gives her team the resources to open that book. The project will combine neutron measurements, which offer a way to distinguish between different types of atomically light atoms, with surface probes and precise electrical measurements. Each technique provides a different view of the buried interface. Neutron scattering is particularly well suited to the problem because neutrons interact strongly with light elements such as hydrogen, lithium, and sodium, the very species that make up many of the ions used in these devices, and because they can penetrate the surrounding materials without destroying the delicate structures being studied. Layered together, the three approaches should allow the researchers to connect the ions’ physical structure and movement with the electronic behavior of the device, replacing empirical guesswork with rational design.

The motivation for pursuing ion-based computing extends beyond scientific curiosity. “Our brains process vast amounts of real-time data at a fraction of the energy required by standard silicon chips,” Fullerton said. “Next-generation AI and autonomous devices will need that same ultra-low-power efficiency to make real-time decisions at the ‘edge,’ and that’s going to require computing with ions, not just electrons.” The comparison captures the scale of the challenge. As artificial intelligence and sensing systems migrate away from centralized data centers and into autonomous vehicles, drones, medical implants, and remote sensors, the energy budget of every computation matters. Devices that move ions the way biological systems do could, in principle, approach the efficiency of neural processing in a way that conventional silicon transistors cannot.

Two-dimensional crystals are the enabling platform for this vision. Materials such as graphene and related atomically thin compounds can be stacked and combined into devices whose active regions are only molecules thick, putting every charge carrier within reach of the surface. That geometry is precisely what makes ion control so effective, and also what makes the double layer so consequential: in a device this thin, a single layer of ions can dominate the entire electronic response. Understanding where those ions sit, how densely they pack, and how quickly they rearrange under an applied voltage is therefore not a peripheral detail but the central design problem.

The award’s structure reflects the long timeline such a measurement campaign requires. Five years of sustained support, plus dedicated funding for specialized equipment, gives the Nanoionics and Electronics Lab the freedom to build instrumentation, refine sample preparation, and iterate on measurement protocols without the pressure of short funding cycles. “The Moore Award allows us to build the team needed to tackle this problem at a scale standard funding simply can’t match,” Fullerton said. “I’m really excited; I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to answer this question for more than a decade.”

Within Pitt, the recognition is being framed as a signal of where engineering research is heading. Michele V. Manuel, U. S. Steel Dean of Engineering, said Fullerton’s selection reflects both the ambition and the interdisciplinary reach of her work. “Susan asks bold questions at the boundary of chemistry, materials, and physics, and she has the creativity and the persistence to answer them,” Manuel said. “We are proud to see her recognized among the nation’s most inventive experimental scientists.” If the project succeeds, the payoff could reach far beyond a single lab: a direct picture of the electric double layer on two-dimensional crystals would give device engineers everywhere the design rules they currently lack, and could accelerate the arrival of a generation of electronics that computes with ions as readily as today’s chips compute with electrons.

Subject of Research: Direct measurement of electric double layers on two-dimensional crystals for ion-based ultra-low-power electronics

Article Title: Pitt’s Susan Fullerton named a Moore Foundation 2026 Experimental Physics Investigator

Article References: Pitt’s Susan Fullerton named a Moore Foundation 2026 Experimental Physics Investigator. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

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Keywords: Susan Fullerton, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, experimental physics, electric double layer, two-dimensional crystals, nanoionics, ultra-low-power electronics, neutron measurements, transistors, edge computing, University of Pittsburgh, ion transport