Department of Materials
Engineering II, Room 1355;
Telephone (805) 893-4601
Web site: www.materials.ucsb.edu
Chair: Michael L. Chabinyc
Vice Chair: Stephen Wilson

Overview

The Department of Materials was conceptualized and built under two basic guidelines: to educate graduate students in advanced materials and to introduce them to novel ways of doing research in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment. Advancing materials technology today—either by creating new materials or improving the properties of existing ones—requires a synthesis of expertise from the classic materials fields of metallurgy, ceramics, and polymer science, and such fundamental disciplines as applied mechanics, chemistry, biology, and solid-state physics. Since no individual has the necessary breadth and depth of knowledge in all these areas, solving advanced materials problems demands the integrated efforts of scientists and engineers with different backgrounds and skills in a research team. The department has effectively transferred the research team concept, which is the operating mode of the high technology industry, into an academic environment.

The department has major research groups working on a wide range of advanced inorganic and organic materials, including advanced structural alloys, ceramics and polymers; high performance composites; thermal and environmental barrier coatings as well as other engineered surfaces; organic, inorganic and hybrid semiconductor and photonic material systems; catalysts and porous materials, hydrogen storage materials; thermoelectric, magnetic, ferroelectric and strongly correlated materials; biomaterials and biosurfaces, including biomedically relevant systems; colloids, gels and other complex fluids; lasers, LEDs and optoelectronic devices; packaging systems; and microscale engineered systems. The groups are typically multidisciplinary involving faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students working on the synthesis and processing, computational analysis, prediction and design, structural characterization, property evaluation, microstructure-property relationships and mathematical models relating atomic, nano- and microscale properties to macroscopic behavior. The department has close collaborations with, and a number of faculty members have joint appointments in, the Departments of Mechanical Engineering (mechanics, design and additive manufacturing), Chemical Engineering (complex fluids, biological systems, polymers), Electrical and Computer Engineering (electronic and photonic devices), Physics, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the BMSE Program.

Five-Year Bachelor of Science Engineering/Master of Science Materials and Bachelor of Science Chemistry/Master of Science Materials Programs
A program combining a bachelor of science in chemical, electrical, or mechanical engineering, or a bachelor of science in Chemistry, with a master of science degree in materials provides an opportunity for outstanding undergraduates to earn both degrees in five years. Additional information about this program is available from the College of Engineering. Interested students should inform the Office of Undergraduate Studies in the College of Engineering or the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of their intention to pursue this program in the beginning of the spring quarter of their sophomore year. Transfer students interested in the combined degree program should contact the undergraduate advising office at the earliest opportunity. In addition to fulfilling undergraduate degree requirements, B.S./M.S. degree candidates must meet Graduate Division degree requirements, including university requirements for residence and units of coursework as described in the section “Graduate Education at UCSB.”

Faculty

Christopher Bates, PhD, University of Austin Texas, Associate Professor (polymer mesostructure and dynamics, energy storage, and crystallization)

Matthew Begley, PhD, UC Santa Barbara, Professor (mechanics of materials, layered and composite materials, computational mechanics, additive manufacturing and micro devices) Joint appointment with: ME

Irene Beyerlein, PhD, Cornell University, Professor (structural mechanics of multi-phase micro- and nanostructured materials, design of metallic alloys) Joint appointment with: ME

John Bowers, PhD, Stanford University, Professor (high-speed photonic and electronic devices and integrated circuits, fiber optic communication, semiconductors, laser physics and mode-locking phenomena, compound semiconductor materials and processing) Joint appointment with: ECE TMP

Michael Chabinyc, PhD, Stanford University, Professor (organic semiconductors, thin film electronics, energy conversion using photovoltaics, characterization of thin films of polymers, x-ray scattering from polymers)

Raphaele Clement, PhD, University of Cambridge, Assistant Professor (electrochemical materials for energy generation and storage, solid-state NMR spectroscopy, EPR spectroscopy, first principles calculations of NMR/EPR parameters)

Steven Denbaars, PhD, University of Southern California, Professor (metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, optoelectronic materials, compound semiconductors, indium phosphide and gallium nitride, photonic devices) Joint appointment with: ECE

Dan Gianola, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, Professor (nanomechanical behavior of materials, tunable energy conversion, micro- and nanoelectronics, thermal management, and waste heat collection)

John Harter, PhD, Cornell University, Assistant Professor (quantum materials, unconventional superconductors, strongly-correlated electrons, nonlinear optical spectroscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy)

Craig Hawker, PhD, Cambridge University, Professor (synthetic polymer chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science) Joint appointment with: CHEM

Sriram Krishnamoorthy, PhD, The Ohio State University, Associate Professor (ultra-wide band gap semiconductors, epitaxial materials and electronic/photonic devices, metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, Gallium Oxide)

Carlos Levi, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor (structural and inorganic materials: conceptual design of materials, synthesis and evolution of the microstructure during processing and service; implications to performance, especially in extreme environments) Joint appointment with: ME

Robert McMeeking, PhD, Brown University, Professor (mechanics of materials, fracture mechanics, plasticity, computational mechanics, process modeling, cell mechanics, functional materials) Joint appointment with: ME

Shuji Nakamura, PhD, University of Tokushima, Professor (gallium nitride, blue lasers, white LEDs, solid state illumination, bulk GaN substrates)

Daniel Oropeza Gomez, Assistant Professor  

Chris Palmstrom, PhD, Leeds University, Professor (atomic level control of interfacial phenomena, in-situ STM, surface and thin film analysis, metallization of semiconductors, dissimilar materials epitaxial growth, molecular beam and chemical beam epitaxial growth of metallic compounds) Joint appointment with: ECE

Angela Pitenis, PhD, University of Florida, Assistant Professor (Surfaces and interfaces, soft matter physics, bio-inspired and biological materials, in situ instrumentation)

Tresa Pollock, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor (mechanical and environmental performance of materials in extreme environments, unique high temperature materials processing paths, ultrafast laser-material interactions, alloy design and 3-D materials characterization)

Ananya Renuka Balakrishna, Assistant Professor  

Cyrus Safinya, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor (biophysics, supramolecular assemblies of biological molecules, non-viral gene delivery systems) Joint appointment with: MCDB

Omar Saleh, PhD, Princeton University, Professor (single-molecule biophysics, motor proteins, DNA-protein interactions) Joint appointment with: BMSE PHYS

Rachel Segalman, PhD, UC Santa Barbara, Professor (polymer design, self-assembly, and properties) Joint appointment with: CNENG

Ram Seshadri, PhD, Indian Institute of Science, Professor (inorganic materials, preparation and magnetism of bulk solids and nonoparticles, patterned materials) Joint appointment with: CHEM

Jim Speck, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor (nitride semiconductors, III-V semiconductors, ferroelectric and high-K films, microstructural evolution, extended defects, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction)

Susanne Stemmer, PhD, Max-Planck-Institut, Professor (functional oxide thin films, structure-property relationships, scanning transmission electron microscopy and spectroscopy)

Galen Stucky, PhD, Iowa State University, Professor (biomaterials, composites, materials synthesis, electro-optical materials, and catalysis) Joint appointment with: CHEM

Chris Van de Walle, PhD, Stanford University, Professor (Novel electronic materials, wide-band-gap semiconductors, oxides)

Anton Van Der Ven, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor (first-principles statistical mechanics methods, phase transformation mechanisms, electrochemical behavior and mechanical properties of materials)

Claude Weisbuch, PhD, Universite Paris VII, Ecole Polytechnique-Palaiseau, Professor (semiconductor physics: fundamental and applied optical studies of quantized electronic structures and photonic-controlled structures; electron spin resonance in semiconductors, optical semiconductor microcavities, photonic bandgap materials)

Stephen Wilson, PhD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Professor (strongly correlated electron/quantum materials, spin-orbit coupling and many-body electronic states in functional materials)

Francis Zok, PhD, McMaster University, Professor (mechanical and thermal properties of materials and structures)

Emeriti Faculty

Gui Bazan, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology  Joint appointment with: CHEM

Anthony Cheetham, PhD, Oxford University (catalysis, optical materials, X-ray, neutron diffraction) Joint appointment with: CHEM

David Clarke, PhD, Cambridge University  Joint appointment with: ME

Larry Coldren, PhD, Stanford University (semiconductor integrated optoelectronics, vertical-cavity lasers, widely-tunable lasers, optical fiber communication, growth and planar processing techniques, molecular beam epitaxy, microfabrication) Joint appointment with: ECE

Alan Heeger, PhD, UC Berkeley (experimental condensed matter physics) Joint appointment with: PHYS

Evelyn Hu, PhD, Columbia University  Joint appointment with: ECE

Herbert Kroemer, PhD, University of Göttingen, Germany (general solid-state and device physics, heterostructures, molecular beam epitaxy, compound semiconductor materials and devices, superconductivity) Joint appointment with: ECE

James Langer, PhD, University of Birmingham  Joint appointment with: PHYS

Frederick Milstein, PhD, UC Los Angeles  Joint appointment with: ME

Robert Odette, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (deformation and fracture, high performance materials for use in severe environments) Joint appointment with: ME

Pierre Petroff, PhD, UC Berkeley  Joint appointment with: ECE

Fyl Pincus, PhD, UC Berkeley (soft condensed matter theory) Joint appointment with: PHYS

Fred Wudl, PhD, UC Los Angeles (organic chemistry and  optical and electro-optical properties of processable conjugated polymers as well as in the organic chemistry of fullerenes and the design and the preparation of self-mending polymers) Joint appointment with: CHEM

Affiliated Faculty

Glenn Fredrickson, PhD