Division of Materials Science & Engineering

Division Head Uday Pal, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Division Associate Heads

Theodore Moustakas, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Soumendra Basu, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Division Director Ruth Mason

The Graduate Program

The Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) Program is offered by the College of Engineering. The program engages faculty from all existing departments within the College of Engineering as well as from the departments of Physics and Chemistry in the College of Arts & Sciences and the Division of Restorative Science/Biomaterials in the School of Dental Medicine. Through coursework, collaborative training projects, and dissertation research, the students will focus on biomaterials, nano-materials, materials for energy and environment, or electronic and photonic materials.

The program offers both MS and PhD degrees. Its curriculum is designed to provide interdisciplinary training that combines fundamental materials science—covering quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, kinetics and materials properties—with engineering applications in rapidly growing areas of biotechnology, nanotechnology, microelectronics, photonics and energy. Students in the program have access to state-of-the-art computational and experimental facilities.

Admissions

Prospective students should have a strong undergraduate background in engineering or the natural sciences. Applicants are required to submit scores from the General Graduate Record Examination. Applicants whose native language is not English are also required to submit results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Applications may be obtained from, and all materials sent to: Boston University, College of Engineering, Graduate Programs, 48 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215. Applications are also available online at www.bu.edu/eng/grad.

International applicants applying for financial aid must submit their applications no later than December 15 for the fall semester and October 1 for the spring semester. U.S. citizens and permanent residents applying for financial aid must submit their applications no later than January 15 for the fall semester and October 1 for the spring semester. Application deadlines for admission without financial aid are April 1 for the fall semester and October 1 for the spring semester for both domestic and international applicants.

Curriculum and Requirements

The Materials Science & Engineering Program offers PhD (postbachelor’s and post-master’s) and MS degrees. As is true for all doctoral programs currently offered by the College of Engineering, the MS requirements for the Materials Science & Engineering degree comprise the structured coursework portion of the PhD program. The remaining required PhD credit hours remain unstructured and can be chosen, with advisor approval, to meet the individual student’s academic and research needs. The reader is referred to individual listings for descriptions of the courses listed below.

• Doctoral students must satisfy a residency requirement of at least two consecutive academic-year semesters of full-time graduate study at Boston University. Students must demonstrate competency in applied mathematics and pass the materials PhD qualifying examination.
• Postbachelor’s PhD students are required to complete a minimum of 64 credits, of which 24 credits must be the structured courses required for the MS degree. There are no structured course requirements for post-master’s PhD students, but such students are required to complete 32 credits applicable to the degree, all of which must be at the 500 level or higher. It is, however, strongly suggested that the post-master’s PhD student take appropriate core courses to pass the PhD qualifying examination. A minimum of 16 credits of research/dissertation coursework is required for post-bachelor’s PhD students and 8 credits for post-master’s PhD students.
• Doctoral students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.00 to remain in good academic standing and to graduate. All graduate courses are counted in the GPA. Only grades of “B−” or better fulfill PhD curricular requirements. This requirement applies to post-BS or post-MS PhD students.
• Master of Science students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.00 to remain in good academic standing and to graduate. All graduate courses are counted in the GPA. Only grades of “C” or better fulfill MS curricular requirements.

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Structured Course Requirements for MS and Postbachelor PhD Students

MS and postrbachelor PhD students must take 6 structured courses (24 credits) from the list below. These are the 4 core courses and 2 concentration courses in a given concentration area listed below. There are no restrictions on the 2 remaining courses.

MSE Curriculum Core (4 courses)

*MS/EC 577 Electrical, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials or

*MS/PY 543 Introduction to Solid State Physics
MS/ME 505 Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
MS/ME 503 Kinetic Processes in Materials
MS/EC 574 Physics of Semiconductor Materials or
MS 504 Polymers and Soft Materials or
MS/ME 582 Mechanical Behavior of Materials or
MS/ME 508 Computational Methods in Materials Science

* Both courses cannot be used to satisfy credit requirements

Concentration
(2 courses from any one concentration area)

Biomaterials

MS/BE 506 Physical Chemistry of Cell Structure and Machinery
MS/BE 521 Continuum Mechanics for Biomedical Engineers
MS/ME/ Mechanics of Biomaterials
BE 523
MS/ME/ Skeletal Tissue Mechanics
BE 524
MS/BE 533 Biorheology
MS/ME/ Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering I BE 726
MS/ME/ Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering II
BE 727
MS/BE 736 Biomedical Transport Phenomena
MS/ME 742 Bio-Fluids and Structural Mechanics
MS/PY 744 Polymer Physics
MS/PY 771 Biophysics

Materials for Energy and Environment

MS/ME 527 Transport Phenomena in Materials Processing
MS/ME 532 Atomic Structure and Dislocations in Materials
MS/ME 535 Green Manufacturing
MS/ME 545 Electrochemistry of Fuel Cells and Batteries
MS/ME 779 Solid State Ionics and Electrochemistry
MS/ME 781 Advanced Ceramics

Electronic/Photonic Materials

MS/EC 560 Introduction to Photonics
MS/EC 575 Physics of Semiconductor Devices
MS/EC 578 Fabrication Technology for Integrated Circuits
MS/EC 770 Guided-Wave Optoelectronics
MS/EC 776 Fundamentals of Nanoelectronics
MS/EC 777 Nanostructure Optics

Nanomaterials

MS/ME 530 Introduction to Micro and Nanomechanics of Solids
MS/ME 555 MEMS Fabrication and Materials
MS/ME 718 Advanced Topics in Nanotechnology
MS/EC 777 Nanostructure Optics
MS/ME 778 Micromachined Transducers

Other courses

MS/ME 507 Process Modeling and Control
MS/ME 526 Simulation of Physical Processes
MS/ME 534 Materials Technology for Microelectronics
MS/ME/ Microelectronic Device Manufacturing
EC 579
MS/ME 580 Theory of Elasticity
MS/PY 783 Advanced Characterization of Materials
MS 784 Topics in Materials Science

Advisors

Upon entry into the Materials Science & Engineering Program, each student will be appointed an academic advisor from the MSE faculty. The advisor will act as the student’s primary academic advisor until the student selects a research advisor(s).

Qualifying Examinations

Doctoral students must demonstrate competency in applied mathematics and pass the materials PhD qualifying examination by the end of their second year. The qualifying examination is derived from the courses listed in the core curriculum (see above), and has a written and an oral component. A research prospectus defense needs to be completed by all PhD students by the end of their third year. This examination consists of an oral examination defending a research prospectus developed by the student. The Prospectus Defense Committee will typically also later serve as the PhD Dissertation Committee.

Language Requirement

There is no foreign language requirement for the Materials Science & Engineering degree. However, basic mastery of spoken and written English as determined by oral presentations, written reports, and publishable manuscripts, is a requirement for the PhD.

Dissertation

The PhD candidate is expected to carry out original research under the guidance of a research advisor(s), who will monitor their progress toward the degree. Doctoral students must defend a written dissertation before a Dissertation Committee by the end of the fifth year of candidacy. The Dissertation Committee must have a minimum of five members including the chair. At least two members of the committee must be affiliated with the Division of Materials Science & Engineering, and at least two members must be affiliated with the College of Engineering.

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Admission and Financial Aid

PhD graduate students may obtain financial aid in the form of competitive teaching fellowships or research assistantships available from grants or contracts held by faculty members. Annual (12 month) stipends are approximately $27,300. Other traineeship funding may also be available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Research Interests of the Faculty

Hatice Altug, PhD: Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Photonic materials and devices.

Rama Bansil, PhD: Professor, Physics. Synthetic and biological macromodules.

Paul Barbone, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Theoretical and computational (bio) mechanics, multi-scale modeling, microstructure, theoretical and computational acoustics.

Soumendra Basu, PhD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Effects of processing on the structure and properties of environmental barrier and thermal barrier coatings, and photonic and electronic thin films, environmental degradation of materials, phase transformations in energy related materials.

Enrico Bellotti, PhD: Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Theoretical and computational modeling of nitride semiconductor materials and devices based on II-VI compounds.

Thomas Bifano, PhD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Deformable mirrors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), adaptive optics.

John Caradonna, PhD: Associate Professor, Chemistry. Mechanism of action of non-heme iron metalloproteins with a focus on the chemistry of metalloenzyme active sites involved in biological oxidation reactions.

Antonio Castro-Neto, PhD: Professor, Physics. Theory of materials with complex electronic structure.

Claudio Chamon, PhD: Professor, Physics. Theory of materials with complex electronic structure.

Laisheng Chou, DMD, PhD: Professor, Division of Oral Medicine, and Professor of Biomaterials, Goldman School of Dental Medicine. Molecular biocompatibility of implant materials.

James Collins, DPhil: Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Synthetic biology, systems biology, noise-enhanced sensorimotor function

Luca Dal Negro, PhD: Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Novel, nanostructured-based materials solutions for CMOS-compatible light sources and lasers. Characterization of optical transitions in Si-based nanostructures via optical spectroscopy and light amplification techniques.

Linda Doerrer, PhD: Assistant Professor, Chemistry. Magnetic materials and metals.

Kamil Ekinci, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Nanomechanics, dissipation and noise in mechanical systems, physics of ultra-thin films.

Michael El-Batanouny, PhD: Professor, Physics. Magnetism at surfaces.

Shyam Erramilli, PhD: Professor, Physics. Biological materials.

Evan Evans, PhD: Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Nano-microscale biomechanics; ultrasensitive force probes and extreme resolution optical techniques; material properties of soft biological materials, e.g., biomembranes.

Maxim Frank-Kamenetskii, ScD: Professor, Biomedical Engineering. DNA, pNA DNA structures; DNA topology; DNA functioning, PNA (peptide nucleic acid).

Michael Gevelber, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Improving materials process capabilities using controls-based approach: modelling, sensor development, system and control design, experimental verification; plasma spray, bulk crystal growth, CVD, ebeam deposition of optical coatings; electrospinning of nanofibers.

Russell A. Giordano, DMD: Associate Professor of Biomaterials, Goldman School of Dental Medicine. Fabrication of multiple phase interpenetrating ceramic composites.

Bennett Goldberg, PhD: Professor, Physics. Optical characterization of materials, sensor design.

Srikanth Gopalan, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Solid state ionics, defect chemistry of oxides, fuel cells and gas separation membranes, and transport phenomena in materials science.

Mark Grinstaff, PhD: Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering and Physics. Polymers, biomaterials, nanomaterials, wound repair, tissue engineering. Ionic liquid materials, crosslinked polymer networks, dendrimers.

Guilford Jones, PhD: Professor, Chemistry. Photochemistry and photophysical properties of dyes, dye probes, and chromophore conjugates of polymers and proteins. Design of photosynthetic models (photoactive peptides) that are capable of charge transport.

Catherine Klapperich, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. Biomedical microdevices and microenvironments research.

William Klein, PhD: Professor, Physics. Statistical physics of materials.

Xi Lin, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Materials theory; predictive simulation of materials electronic, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties.

Karl Ludwig, PhD: Professor, Physics. Surface and thin film processes, phase transitions.

J. Gregory McDaniel, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Structural acoustics and interactions of vibrations and acoustics with complex structures and media.

Amit Meller, PhD: Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Biomolecular interactions and dynamics, single molecule sensors, nanomaterials, biopolymers.

Pritiraj Mohanty, PhD: Associate Professor, Physics. Nanoscale materials, mechanical properties.

Elise Morgan, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical behavior of biological materials, mechanical stimulation of tissue differentiation, micromechanics of multiscale media, damage mechanics.

Theodore Morse, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Aerosol techniques for the synthesis of fiber lasers, unagglommerated nanoscale particles, transparent ceramics for high power laser applications and large-scale gamma-ray scintillators for medical imaging and explosive detection.

Theodore Moustakas, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Growth and characterization of materials and devices based on nitride semiconductors. Current emphasis is in the area of LEDs for solid state lighting and deep UV lasers and solar blind detectors for fluorescence and Raman identification.

Todd Murray, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Optical techniques for materials characterization, photothermal and photoacoustic microscopy, NDE of micro- and nanoscale materials, photorefractive materials and devices, tissue characterization using acousto-optic interactions.

Dan Nathanson, DMD: Professor, Restorative Sciences/Biomaterials, Goldman School of Dental Medicine. Biomaterials with emphasis on esthetic restorative materials.

Roberto Paiella, PhD: Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Intersubband transitions in III-nitride quantum wells to develop nonlinear optical switches for ultra-high-speed optical communications, and mid- and far-infrared light emitters for sensing and imaging applications.

Uday B. Pal, PhD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. High-temperature processing of materials with environmental, energy and cost implications. Materials thermodynamics and kinetics, physical chemistry and electrochemistry of materials, solid-state chemistry, transport phenomena, green manufacturing.

Richard Pober, ScD: Associate Research Professor of Biomaterials, Goldman School of Dental Medicine. Ceramics engineering, interpenetrating phase materials, mechanics of materials, materials design, process design, equipment design.

Anatoli Polkovnikov, PhD: Assistant Professor, Physics. Theory of materials with complex electronic structure.

Sid Redner, PhD: Professor, Physics. Statistical physics of materials.

Bjorn Reinhard, PhD: Assistant Professor, Chemistry. Photophysical properties of nanoparticles and the applications of these nanoparticles to biological sensors and devices.

Anders Sandvik, PhD: Associate Professor, Physics. Theory of materials with complex electronic structure.

Vinod Sarin, ScD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Materials science, physical and chemical vapor deposition of structural coatings, surface modification, consolidation of ceramics, transparent ceramics, scintillators materials, composites.

Daniel Segrè, PhD: Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Bioinformatics. Evolutionary dynamics of biological networks, in particular the interplay between response to genetic and environmental perturbations, genomic-level functional organization, and optimal adaptation.

Kevin Smith, PhD: Professor, Physics. Electronic structure of materials.

Dimitrije Stamenovic, PhD: Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Cellular mechanics, rheology of soft tissues and cell, respiratory mechanics, mechanics of foam-like structure.

Gene Stanley, PhD: Professor, Physics. Statistical physics of materials.

John Straub, PhD: Professor, Chemistry. Theoretical and computational chemistry and biophysics.

Bela Suki, PhD: Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Biomechanics of tissues and extracellular matrix, the ensemble behavior of complex biological systems; nonlinearities in biological systems.

Anna Swan, PhD: Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Raman spectroscopy in carbon nanotubes and optical characterization of materials, sensors.

Joe Tien, PhD: Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Biological materials, microvascular tissue engineering; microvascular physiology; hydrogels.

Ophelia Tsui, PhD: Associate Professor, Physics. Synthetic and biological macromolecules.

M. Selim Ünlü, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Nanoscale materials, optical properties, biophysics, sensors.

Joyce Wong, PhD: Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Biomaterials, nanomaterials, tailoring cell-material interfaces for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications; direct, quantitative measurement of biological interactions.

Katherine Y. Zhang, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical behavior of soft biological tissue, multi-scale modeling of biological composites, thin film mechanics.

Xin Zhang, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Materials for MEMS applications.

Larry Ziegler, PhD: Professor, Chemistry. Ultrafast femtosecond laser measurements in a variety of materials, femtosecond carrier relaxation dynamics and optical properties of wide range of materials which include liquids, supercritical fluids, photodissociative molecules, biologically important species and wide band gap semiconductors.

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16 October 2009
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