Materials Science & Engineering

Master's Degree Program

Department overview

Biomedical materials, metals, polymers, glasses, electronics: all are being tested and improved every day by materials engineers and scientists solving vital problems and advancing technology. Where will you make your contribution?

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering offers course work leading to a Master of Science degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Materials Science and Engineering. The programs provide strong collaborative links with other universities and industries in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and research organizations throughout the world.

You will have many opportunities to develop highly marketable skills in industries and areas such as:

• automotive
• aviation
• biomedical
• chemical
• electric power
• electronics
• environmental
• academia

The department addresses the educational and technological challenges of creating, applying and characterizing new materials for manufacturing products in the 21st century. As part of your graduate studies, you will learn all aspects of modern materials and their characterization including metals, ceramics, polymers, and electronic and optical materials.

The university is constantly assessing its degree programs with an eye on tomorrow's marketplace. UNT's College of Engineering is a pioneer in developing project-oriented curricula that allows you to apply knowledge in tangible real-world applications. Our state-of-the-art lab and research facilities are the envy of universities nationwide.

With small class sizes, you will work closely with distinguished faculty members to solve complex problems faced by businesses and consumers. You also will have the opportunity to take advantage of the invaluable contacts the university has with leading companies and corporate partners.

The department has 11 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, more than 40 graduate students and well-equipped laboratories with outstanding technical support. Several post-doctoral researchers contribute to the department as well as co-investigators from other departments in the College of Engineering and the physics, chemistry and biological sciences departments.

The department is part of the College of Engineering and located at Discovery Park, UNT's nearly 290-acre research facility where innovative, futuristic ideas are investigated daily — from the development of stealth unmanned vehicles to compostable plastic packaging to new energy-efficient lighting materials.

Research and laboratories

UNT is committed to the discovery and application of knowledge through research and creative activities. The department also has attracted many award-winning, nationally recognized faculty who partner with students on unique research projects and serve as mentors and advisors.

For example, Professor Alan Needleman, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the country's top engineering professors and researchers. Assistant Professor Srinivasan G. Srivilliputhur was awarded a coveted National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study lightweight alloys for potential transportation applications. Professor Narendra Dahotre was elected a 2009 Fellow of the Indian Institute of Metals and recognized for his contributions to the understanding and engineering of laser-materials interactions and the implementation of high-power lasers for materials processing and surface engineering. Regents Professor Witold Brostow is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (London).

The department has a number of laboratories and groups researching properties of metals, ceramics, polymers, electronic and optical materials. It is located adjacent to the UNT Center for Advanced Research and Technology that houses more than $12 million of state-of-the-art instrumentation.

The Advanced Metallics Laboratory focuses on the processing and characterization of metals, alloys, intermetallics and composites.

The Computational Materials Laboratory applies state-of-the-art multiscale materials simulation methods from density functional theory, classical atomistic simulations (such as large scale molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods) to continuum scale finite element analysis to study a wide range of material structures, defect processes and structure-property relations.

The Energy Materials Laboratory addresses processing, characterization and overall device development for energy conversion technologies.

The Laboratory of Advanced Polymers and Optimized Materials is dedicated to the development of materials with improved mechanical, tribological and thermophysical properties, including thermoplastics, thermosets, composites, nanohybrids and coatings.

The Laboratory of Electronic Materials and Devices has comprehensive electronic materials synthesis and characterization capabilities.

The Materials Synthesis and Processing Laboratory studies the development of novel materials and processing methods for semiconductor, biomedical and defense applications.

The Optoelectronics and Thin Film Materials Laboratory focuses on the physics and processing of inorganic and organic semiconductor materials and devices for solid state lighting, solar conversion and other energy saving/generating applications.

The Polymer Mechanical and Rheology Laboratory houses studies in polymers, hydrogels, food packaging, ceramic corrosion coatings, elastomers, blends, nanocomposites, macro-composites, nanotube filled adhesives and polymer-modified concrete.

The Thin Film Tribology Laboratory concentrates on thin film processing and characterization of next generation nanostructured materials for mitigation of friction and wear (tribological) in sliding and rolling devices.

Students and faculty work in close collaboration with CART and heavily use its facilities. CART manages state-of-the-art capabilities including an Imago Scientific Instruments Local Electrode Atom Probe 3000x, a FEI TF20ST analytical high-resolution transmission electron microscope, a FEI Nova 200 Nanolab dual-beam scanning electron microscope/focused ion beam instrument, an environmental scanning electron microscope, high-resolution scanning XPS and Auger systems, RAMAN and FTIR spectrometers, ellipsometers, and high-resolution X-ray diffraction systems.

Admission requirements

You must meet the requirements of UNT's Toulouse School of Graduate Studies plus a set of specific program requirements. For information about graduate school admission, visit www.gradschool.unt.edu/admissions.

Admission to the department is based on a holistic review outlined on the department web site at www.mtsc.unt.edu. From the prospective students menu, click on the admissions link. Additional information is available from the graduate coordinator.

Degree requirements

Two options for a Master of Science degree are offered. The thesis option requires 32 credit hours, and the problems-in-lieu of thesis route requires 35 credit hours. Work for the master's thesis consists of independent and original studies, which may be experimental, computational or a combination of the two.

The Doctor of Philosophy degree requires 90 credit hours beyond the bachelor's degree or 60 credit hours beyond the master's degree, with 12 credit hours allocated for a dissertation.

The doctoral degree represents the attainment of a high level of scholarship and achievement in independent research and culminates in the completion of an original dissertation. As a doctoral candidate, you are expected to publish at least two original research articles in a refereed journal before graduation. You also must present the results of your research at a departmental seminar.

A minor in materials science and engineering is available if you are working toward a degree in another program. You should contact the graduate coordinator for registration information if you wish to take fewer than 12 credit hours of materials science and engineering courses.

Financial assistance

Teaching assistantships funded by the department and research assistantships funded by individual faculty research grants support the majority of students. Only doctoral students and master's students who select the thesis option are eligible for teaching or research assistantships. Out-of-state and international students who are funded at least half time are eligible for in-state tuition rates. A significant number of in-state tuition scholarships are available.