Materials

The Materials group is engaged in highly interdisciplinary materials research to drive new innovations to solve critical societal problems in areas such as energy and healthcare, among others.

Research Topics

• Materials for Healthcare Applications: Exciting developments over the last decade of materials-based technologies for diagnostics and therapeutic applications include lab-on-a-chip devices, understanding the mechanical behavior of biomaterials, regeneration of bone and cartilage, and novel scintillating materials for next generation of detectors for medical imaging.
• Materials for Energy and Environment: This research focuses on materials related to clean energy conversion, including solid oxide fuel cells, membrane based environmentally friendly processing of energy-intensive metals, hydrogen generation and storage, carbon dioxide separation for sequestration, advanced coatings for clean energy generation, and waste to energy conversion technologies.
• Materials Theory and Modeling: Ongoing research is focused on predictive simulation of electronic, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties of materials, and multi-scale modeling of biological composites.
• Materials at the Micro/Nano Scale: Mechanical behavior of MEMS/NEMS devices, physics of ultra-thin metal films, and development of polymeric micro/nano-biosystems for in-situ study of cellular and sub-cellular mechanics.

Faculty