Research Topics

The Materials Science and Engineering faculty maintain a large array of active programs and specialized facilities in seven key areas of advanced materials research:

Biomaterials

Ceramic and polymer-ceramic composite materials for orthopedic and dental implants, bone repair, delivery of bone-regenerative drugs, and coatings for titanium-based implants.

Electronic Materials

Ferroelectric materials and thin film devices, dielectric and piezoelectric ceramics, high-energy density capacitors, gate dielectrics, conducting oxides, and photonic crystals.

Materials in Energy and the Environment

Design and development of materials and structures for solid oxide and PEM fuel cell, photovoltaic, hydrogen storage, and energy transduction applications.

Materials Synthesis and Processing

Particle growth by soft chemical and solution crystallization methods, thin film growth by metal-organic decomposition and pulsed laser deposition, solid free form fabrication and joining of ceramics, deformation processing of amorphous metal alloys, metal alloy casting and solidification processes, ion implantation and laser processing of metals and ceramics.

Materials Theory

First-principles calculations of interfacial phenomena in semiconductors, insulators and composite materials, constitutive modeling of coupled interactions in graded thin film and multilayer ferroic heterostructures, thermodynamic theory of transformational phenomena and microstructure evolution in ferroelectrics and related materials.

Nanostructured Materials

Nanolithography, nanofabrication, and nanomanipulation of materials, high temporal resolution scanning probe microscopy measurements of materials properties at the nanoscale, assembly of low dimensional nanostructured materials including quantum dots, nanowires and other novel structures, studies of defects, interfaces, and related nanoscale phenomena in metals, ceramics and semiconductors using analytical and high-resolution electron microscopy techniques.

Structural Materials

Properties of conventional and super alloys, bulk metallic glasses, thermal barrier coatings, radomes, and materials for active structural control.