Materials Science & Engineering Fundamentals
Score Requirements: Science and Math
About the Course: From the Stone Age to the age of plasma TVs, LED-enabled DVD players, photovoltaics, and biomaterials, “materials” have played an important role in shaping society and improving our quality of life. Engineers strive to learn why materials submitted to extreme fatigue conditions fail. To ensure safe construction of everything from a bridge to a sneaker, engineers must thoroughly examine and test the materials. In this course, you will explore the structure of materials on the atomic and molecular scale and take an in-depth tour of material characterization tools such as atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. Learn what properties of materials can be changed to make them suitable for specific applications (e.g., aerospace, military, and microelectronics). Study not only traditional materials such as metals, polymers, ceramics, semiconductors and composites, but also investigate a new class of novel materials, nanomaterials. Learn why giant magnetoresistance (GMR) inventors won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics and how GMR revolutionized portable .mp3 players.
About the Instructor: Donovan N. Leonard is currently a Visiting Research Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. He holds a Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. degree in Materials Science & Engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC and researched bio-related nanotechnologies for his dissertation using state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques. Before completing his graduate education, Dr. Leonard worked as a contract scientist for the Center for Bio/Molecular Science & Engineering of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. and later gained experience with lead-free solder technology at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. In summer 2007 he was the instructor for the nanotechnology course in Duke TIP’s Summer Studies Program.
Instructor(s) subject to change.