The research in Thrust 3 focuses on materials for electrical interconnects, materials and devices for optical chip-to-chip interconnects, material characterization and metrology, and interconnect benchmarking. During this initial performance period, all tasks have actively engaged the graduate students and postdocs in the new research directions as described in the proposal. Meetings between PIs, graduate students, and postdocs within Thrust 3 have focused on developing a clear understanding of everyone’s capabilities, specific Task goals, and effective ways for collaboration. In addition, multiple collaborations with Tasks in other SUPREME Thrusts have been established as well as other JUMP 2.0 centers including CoCoSys and CHIMES.