Research Emphasis Areas

The Materials and Biomaterials Science and Engineering (MBSE) graduate group offers a multidisciplinary research and training program for doctoral and master-level students at the forefront of the modern revolutions in materials science technology.

We have organized our research into four emphases:

Materials for Sustainability

The Materials for Sustainability emphasis includes materials for energy harvesting, conversion, and storage with applications in catalysis, solar cells, batteries, and fuel cells.

Image: Understanding the low energy barriers for polarization reversal in ferroelectric SrBi2Ta2O9. Pokhrel & Nowadnick, PRB 107, 054108 (2023). Image by the Nowadnick Lab.

 

Materials for Biomedicine

The Materials for Biomedicine emphasis includes mechanobiology, biomimicry, biomaterials and tissue engineering, drug delivery, microfabrication, and bioelectronics for sensing and monitoring.

Image: Polyacrylamide hydrogel of tunable viscoelasticity for epithelial mechanobiology studies. Image by the Andresen Eguiluz Lab.

Electronic, Magnetic, and Optical Materials

Semiconductors for artificial intelligence and next-generation microelectronics, functional materials, quantum materials, flexible electronics

Surface Science

The study of surfaces and surface phenomena at the atomic and molecular level for friction, adhesion, catalysis, or corrosion. 

Image: Water wetting of bare glass and hydrophobized glass, image courtesy of Andresen-Eguiluz group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Materials and Interfaces for Tailored Functionalities

The Materials and Interfaces for Tailored Functionalities emphasis includes creating new organic and inorganic building blocks and corresponding material platforms for novel thermal, mechanical, optical, electronic, plasmonic and quantum behaviors in bulk or at interfaces to enable fundamental studies and technological advancements.

Image: Atomic-resolution moiré patterns imaged on a twisted graphite-graphite interface, recorded via conductive atomic force microscopy under ambient conditions. Image by the Baykara Lab.