ONHS Report: DARPA-SN-27-10

Request for Information: Flexoelectric Future

Solicitation ID: DARPA-SN-27-10

Agency: DARPA/MXO

Type: Special Notice

Deadline: 2026-12-04T14:00:00 ET

Eligibility: Yes (Unrestricted)

Funding: N/A

Doc Type: RFI

Clearance: No

Program Manager: Dr. David Meyer

Last Updated: 2026-11-05 17:03

Analyzed File: DARPA-SN-27-10.pdf

Eligibility Reasoning

Responses are welcome from all capable sources including, but not limited to, private or public companies, individuals, universities, university-affiliated research centers, not-for-profit research institutions, and U.S. Government-sponsored laboratories.

Note: This is an AI-generated summary...

Summary

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) for 'Flexoelectric Futures' to inform a potential research program. The RFI seeks to explore flexoelectricity and other strain-gradient-driven electromechanical responses as a new technology platform for Department of War (DoW) sensing and transduction needs, particularly where mechanical compliance and geometric complexity limit conventional piezoelectric systems. The primary technical goal is to transform poorly understood phenomena (e.g., interfaces, defects, ionic transport, geometry) from sources of variability into controllable design variables for creating reproducible, high-performance materials and devices. The RFI solicits information in three areas: 1) 'Mechanism-Resolved Compliant Flexoelectric Materials' focuses on understanding fundamental mechanisms, developing predictive design rules, and creating stable, high-response materials. 2) 'State-Selective Strain-Gradient Transduction Device Elements' seeks device concepts that can intrinsically distinguish between different mechanical states (e.g., bend vs. impact, contact vs. slip) to perform local, material-level computation. 3) 'Idea Exploration' is an open call for novel concepts and key research questions to advance the field. The overall objective is to assess the viability of strain-gradient transduction for future applications like distributed sensing, adaptive transduction, and physical-compute systems. (Source: DARPA-SN-27-10.pdf.)

Overall Technical Areas

Flexoelectric MaterialsStrain-Gradient TransductionElectromechanical Response MechanismsAdvanced Dielectric MaterialsComputational Materials ModelingPredictive Materials DesignElectromechanical MetrologyState-Selective Device DesignCompliant Robotic StructuresDistributed Sensing SystemsAdaptive TransductionPhysical & Morphological ComputingScalable Material FabricationDevice Integration & Packaging

Probable LBNL Areas

BSACSAEESAESAETAPSA· Dielectric Materials· Material Synthesis Concepts

Focus Areas

Example Priorities:

Material systems and architectures that may enable high-response, compliant, and stable strain-gradient transduction, including organic-inorganic hybrid dielectrics, ionically enhanced materials, dielectric-ferroelectric composites, non-crystalline materials, defect-engineered materials, multilayers, porous structures, gradient materials, and strain-gradient-concentrating geometries.
Measurement, theory, simulation, and calibration approaches that distinguish intrinsic flexoelectricity from interfacial polarization, ionic transport, defect-mediated effects, phase-boundary behavior, electrode effects, and geometry-driven amplification.
Material, microstructure, interface, and electrode design rules that link composition, processing, geometry, and operating conditions to electromechanical response amplitude, bandwidth, phase, loss, hysteresis, leakage, relaxation, drift, compliance, and cycle life.
Scalable pathways for fabricating, packaging, and integrating compliant flexoelectric materials into robust transduction devices, including environmental stability, fatigue, reproducibility, and manufacturability considerations.

Specific Technical Skills:

Materials ScienceDielectric MaterialsFlexoelectricityDefect EngineeringComputational Materials ScienceMaterial CharacterizationMicrostructure DesignIonic TransportScalable FabricationElectromechanical Modeling

Potential PIs for this Area:

Name	Score	Organization
Francesco Ricci	0.79	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Computational Materials Science
Kristin Persson	0.78	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Materials Science
Harold Barnard	0.77	ESA \| ALS \| Photon Science Development · Material Characterization
Lane Martin	0.77	· Dielectric Materials
John Thomas	0.76	ESA \| ALS \| Photon Science Development · Defect Engineering
Yu Chen	0.75	ESA \| MF \| MF NCEM Facility · Ionic Transport
Nobumichi Tamura	0.75	ESA \| ALS \| ALS Photon Science Operations · Microstructure Design
Zhi Jackie Yao	0.75	CSA \| AMCR \| Applied Mathematics · Electromechanical Modeling
Arian Gashi	0.74	ESA \| MF \| MF Nanofabrication Facility · Scalable Fabrication
Ahmad Omar	0.74	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Flexoelectricity

Example Priorities:

Flexoelectric device elements that use material behavior, microstructure, geometry, interfaces, electrodes, and transport dynamics to encode local mechanical conditions as stable and distinguishable electromechanical outputs.
Material and device mechanisms that distinguish slow bend from impact, stable contact from slip, safe load from overload, localized contact from distributed deformation, transient vibration from sustained loading, or intact material state from damaged or degraded material state.
Device-level approaches that support future distributed sensing, adaptive transduction, physical-compute device elements, morphological-compute systems, or body-level reflex applications.
Figures of merit, benchmarking approaches, and test protocols for evaluating state-selective strain-gradient transduction, including response separability, false-alarm and missed-event rates, signal-to-noise ratio, response and recovery time, and cycle life.

Specific Technical Skills:

Sensor DesignDevice ArchitectureTransducer EngineeringMechanical State DiscriminationPhysical ComputingDistributed SensingDevice BenchmarkingElectromechanical SystemsSignal IntegrityMorphological Computation

Potential PIs for this Area:

Name	Score	Organization
Prabal Dutta	0.77	ETA \| Building & Industrial Energy Systems \| Bldg Technologies Dept · Distributed Sensing
Linqing Luo	0.75	EESA \| EG \| Geophysics Dept · Distributed Sensing
Georgios Michelogiannakis	0.75	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Device Architecture
Eric Masanet	0.74	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Electromechanical Systems
Angelos Ioannou	0.74	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Physical Computing
Yuan Mei	0.74	PSA \| PHY \| Atlas · Sensor Design
Dilip Vasudevan	0.73	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Morphological Computation
Panagiotis Zarkos	0.73	PSA \| Engineering \| Electronic Engineering · Signal Integrity
Anastasiia Butko	0.73	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Device Benchmarking
Zachary Jones	0.73	BSA \| Biological Systems & Engineering \| Process Engr & Analytics · Mechanical State Discrimination

Example Priorities:

Scientific, technical, metrology, manufacturing, integration, or scaling questions that must be resolved to determine whether flexoelectric and related strain-gradient transduction can become a viable DoW technology platform.
New material concepts, interfaces, device architectures, metrology methods, models, figures of merit, or experiments that could resolve these questions, distinguish competing mechanisms, or establish credible design rules.
Relevant capabilities, facilities, datasets, test infrastructure, partnerships, or prior work that could support investigation of the identified questions and validation of potential solutions.

Specific Technical Skills:

Technology RoadmappingExperimental DesignMetrology DevelopmentTheoretical PhysicsResearch StrategyTechnology TransitionMaterial Synthesis ConceptsSystems Integration AnalysisScientific Inquiry

Potential PIs for this Area:

Name	Score	Organization
Lane Martin	0.77	· Material Synthesis Concepts
Ian Lacey	0.77	ESA \| ALS \| Photon Science Development · Metrology Development
Kevin Cruse	0.76	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Material Synthesis Concepts
Eric Masanet	0.76	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Systems Integration Analysis
Thomas Hendrickson	0.75	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Systems Integration Analysis
Alex Newkirk	0.75	ETA \| Building & Industrial Energy Systems \| Bldg & Industrial App Dpt · Technology Roadmapping
Michael Zaletel	0.75	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Theoretical Physics
Petr Horava	0.75	PSA \| PHY \| Theory Group · Theoretical Physics
Maximilian Auffhammer	0.74	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Scientific Inquiry
Rajshree Deshmukh	0.73	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Experimental Design

Potential LBNL PIs (Overall)

Note on PI Matching: These suggestions are generated through an AI-driven semantic analysis of LBNL staff profiles.

Name	Score	Organization
Francesco Ricci	0.79	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Predictive Materials Design
Lane Martin	0.77	· Advanced Dielectric Materials
Prabal Dutta	0.77	ETA \| Building & Industrial Energy Systems \| Bldg Technologies Dept · Distributed Sensing Systems
Didier Perrodin	0.76	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Scalable Material Fabrication
Zhi Jackie Yao	0.75	CSA \| AMCR \| Applied Mathematics · Physical & Morphological Computing
Qin Yu	0.75	ESA \| MSD \| Material Physics · Strain-Gradient Transduction
Ian Lacey	0.75	ESA \| ALS \| Photon Science Development · Electromechanical Metrology
Marina Radulaski	0.74	ESA \| MF \| MF Nanofabrication Facility · State-Selective Device Design
Marcus Noack	0.74	CSA \| AMCR \| Mathematics · Adaptive Transduction
Bruce Nordman	0.74	ETA \| Building & Industrial Energy Systems \| Bldg Technologies Dept · Compliant Robotic Structures

Fundamental Research Exemption (FRE)

Not Mentioned