Moore Foundation Pledges $95 Million to Research ‘Exotic’ Materials

A $95 million commitment from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for research in the emerging field of quantum materials is intended to help spark a “revolution” in how energy is transmitted, among other advancements.

Robert Kirshner, Moore’s chief program officer for science, said some of the most exciting findings in quantum materials — complex electronic and magnetic material with “exotic” properties — are related to high-temperature superconductors.

“Technologically that’s a very important thing because if you could make superconductors at room temperatures, that would be a huge revolution in how power is distributed and many other things in the world,” he said. “We have confidence that if you do the basic research, some of these things will result in important technological changes, and they can even change the way you live.”

Kirshner joined the Moore Foundation in 2015 after 31 years as a leading astronomer at Harvard University who researched, among other things, supernova explosions.

The Moore Foundation’s new six-year pledge for quantum materials is part of a larger plan, the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiative, or EPiQS, which began in 2013. The foundation’s initial investment five years ago was $90 million. Some funding for six research institutions have gone to Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley, among others, however a foundation spokeswoman said most of the funding for quantum materials research goes to individual investigators and fellows, not the institutions.

“In scientific research, it’s not that easy to know which things are going to have lasting value. You don’t want to fool yourself. You don’t know which of the things will turn out to be the most important 25 years from now,” Kirshner said, “but we do know this quantum world has a lot of phenomena that have not been explored, that have not been understood.”

The foundation has big hopes for what the research may ultimately accomplish.

“While we focus on fundamental aspects of these fascinating materials,” said Dušan Pejakovic, the EPiQS program director, “we believe that some of them will find applications in technologies that improve human life or change the way science is done.”

Science Mission

The latest commitment fits squarely within the Moore Foundation’s mission, which includes fostering scientific and environmentally conscious research. Last week the Chronicle reported that the foundation is one in a group of grant makers committing $459 million to reduce global warming.

Other big commitments for the Moore Foundation include $200 million to build the largest telescope in the world, in Hawaii, as well as data-science projects, marine-microbiology work, and a plan to design a particle accelerator on a chip.

The foundation has distributed a total of nearly $3.7 billion in grants as of the end of last year. About 45 percent was for environmental causes and nearly 34 percent for science, according to the organization’s website.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the announcement of a $95 million grant. The announcement was of a commitment, with the grant making still to come in the years ahead.