Department Overview

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering studies the infinitesimally small to achieve breakthroughs of global significance.

Our faculty and students study materials at their atomic and molecular levels to create the microscopic devices and large-scale systems essential for cutting-edge energy production and storage, information technology, environmental sustainability, and medicine.

With its roots in metallurgy, materials science and engineering is a venerable scientific discipline, expanding in recent decades to encompass polymers, ceramics, glass, composite materials, and biomaterials. Virtually all sophisticated products — computers, aircraft, biomedical devices — require materials manufactured to precise specifications. Increasingly, these specifications are determined at the molecular level. The evolution of advanced products can be hobbled by the limitations of the available materials.

Our mission is to break through these limitations to provide the materials needed for unimpeded progress in a wide range of technologies. We are advancing the creation of new materials, from determining optimal base constituents to devising manufacturing processes. Our only limits are the essential properties of the elements and their compounds, and the laws of thermodynamics.

As we strive to develop new technologies, we also endeavor to improve the efficiencies of existing systems. We work collaboratively with researchers in other fields, including chemical engineering, applied physics, electrical engineering and medicine. Our department supports 15 areas of research, from computational materials science to materials for quantum computing, from bio-inspired polymers to materials for energy and environmental sustainability.

The department offers BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Materials Science and Engineering, along with advanced postdoctoral training. Stanford undergraduates are encouraged to extend their course work through our MS coterminal degree.