Program Overview

Overview of the Materials Science and Engineering Program

The Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) program at Princeton University is designed to provide students with a comprehensive education in the principles and applications of materials science and engineering. The program is interdisciplinary, drawing on faculty and resources from across the university to provide students with a broad range of research opportunities and academic courses.

Program Description

The Ph.D. program in MSE is a five-year program that offers a doctoral degree to students with undergraduate training in materials and/or wish to be principally identified as materials scientists and engineers. The program leverages the wide array of PMI faculty members at the leading edge of many important research areas addressing innovations and solutions for today’s complex problems.

Program Requirements

• Students will be required to take seven courses, plus a non-credit class on materials research at Princeton, and a half-term course on responsible conduct of research.
• Beyond an introductory course, the required curriculum consists of courses in three central topics within materials science and engineering (thermodynamics of materials, solid state structure and characterization, and kinetics and phase transformations in materials), plus a methods course (experimental or theoretical/computational), coupled with at least two courses in the student’s specific area of interest.
• The general examination will consist of a written proposal and the student’s oral defense of it.
• Students are expected to stand for the general examination during the January examination period of their second year of study.
• Students will be required to teach six contact hours per week for one term (one full-time assignment) or three contact hours per week for two terms (two half-time assignments); this requirement will typically be fulfilled during the second year of enrollment.

Post-Generals Requirements

• After a student completes the general exam, a yearly committee meeting is required for re-enrollment.
• In the spring of their year of study, students will present a thirty-minute seminar on their research progress.
• The program’s recommendation to the University to award a Ph.D. is made after the candidate’s doctoral dissertation has been accepted and the final public oral examination sustained.

Faculty

• The Director of Graduate Studies is Mikko P. Haataja.
• The Executive Committee includes Marcella Lusardi, Aditya Sood, Salvatore Torquato, and Saien Xie.
• For a full list of faculty members and fellows, please refer to the department or program website.

Permanent Courses

The following are some of the permanent courses offered by the program:

• CBE 503 - Advanced Thermodynamics (also MSE 521)
• CBE 526 - Surface Science: Processes and Probes (also CHM 527/MSE 526)
• CBE 541 - Polymer Synthesis (also MSE 534)
• CBE 544 - Solid-State Properties of Polymers (also MSE 522)
• CEE 545 - Origami Engineering (also MAE 556/MSE 535)
• CHM 503 - Introduction to Statistical Mechanics (also CBE 524/MSE 514)
• CHM 522 - Advanced Inorganic Chemistry (also MSE 592)
• ECE 541 - Quantum Material Spectroscopy (also MSE 554)
• ECE 547B - Selected Topics in Solid-State Electronics (also MSE 557)
• ECE 549 - Micro-Nanofabrication and Thin-Film Processing (also MSE 549)
• ECE 554 - Nonlinear Optics (also MSE 553)
• ECE 557 - Solar Cells: Physics, Materials, and Technology (also ENE 557/MSE 558)
• ECE 560 - Fundamentals of Nanophotonics (also MSE 556/PHY 565)
• ENE 506 - Synchrotron and Neutron Techniques for Energy Materials (also CBE 566/CEE 506/MAE 536/MSE 586)
• GEO 501 - Physics and Chemistry of Minerals (also MSE 541)
• GEO 507 - Topics in Mineralogy and Mineral Physics (also MSE 547)
• MAE 521 - Optics and Lasers (also MSE 561)
• MAE 550 - Lessons from Biology for Engineering Tiny Devices (also MSE 560)
• MAE 568 - Energy Transport at the Nanoscale (also ECE 548/MSE 568)
• MOL 567 - Electron Microscopy in Structural Biology (Half-Term) (also MSE 542)
• MSE 501 - Introduction to Materials (also CBE 514/CEE 561/MAE 561)
• MSE 502 - Phase Transformations in Materials (also MAE 504)
• MSE 503 - Solid State Materials
• MSE 504 - Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics Simulation in Statistical Physics & Materials Science (also CBE 520/CHM 560/CSE 504/PHY 512)
• MSE 505 - Characterization of Materials
• MSE 511 - Selected Topics in 2D Materials
• MSE 512 - Phase Transformations in Materials: Theory and Simulation (also CHM 511)
• MSE 515 - Random Heterogeneous Materials (also APC 515/CHM 559)
• MSE 517 - Structural and Material Optimization (also CEE 517/MAE 571)
• MSE 518 - Fundamentals of Quantum Materials and Their Applications (also CHM 518)
• PHY 506 - Advanced Quantum Mechanics (also MSE 576)
• PHY 536 - Advanced Condensed Matter Physics II (also MSE 577)