Email your submission to [email protected]. Each problem page says what a submission must include. By submitting, you agree to the Official Rules.
Grand Challenges
The biggest unexplained mysteries in materials science. These challenges are decades old, extensively studied, unsolved and verifiable. A breakthrough in any would unlock major advances in chip manufacturing, superconductivity, clean energy, and other domains at once. We commit $1 million in prize money to solutions to these challenges.
Open problems
- 01A Predictive Theory of Cuprate SuperconductivityExplain how superconductivity emerges from the cuprates’ unusual normal state, and predict their phase diagram from a microscopic theory.
- 02Interfacial Electrical Properties from Processing HistoryPredict how industrially relevant semiconductor interfaces form, evolve and acquire their electrical properties from the fabrication history: growth, cooling and annealing.
- 03Breaking the Speed–Accuracy Barrier in Quantum ChemistryCompute reaction barriers with unprecedented accuracy at a fraction of today’s computational cost, enabling reliable simulations at scale.
- 04Tuning Materials with LightCompute what a laser pulse does to a real material, with electrons and lattice vibrations treated together, in a computationally tractable way over long time scales.
- 05Predicting Heat Transport across Solid InterfacesEnable energy-efficient compute by understanding heat transport across interfaces in devices.
Submitting a solution
Tell us what you think
These grand challenges are built with input and feedback from the community. If you have any on a specific challenge, we would be excited to hear it. Send your comments or questions to [email protected].