News

Off the Scales: Fish Armor Both Tough and Flexible High-tech imaging of carp scales by Berkeley Lab scientists reveals remarkable properties that could lead to advanced synthetic materials. Read full Berkeley Lab story here. Contact Us Department offices are located in 210 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, in the Northeast corner of campus. Address: Department of…

Long-term loan program for students who require laptops, WiFi hotspots, and other tech resources. Students who do not have access to the technology resources they need are invited to apply now to the Student Tech Equity Program (STEP) to be considered for a new laptop, Wi-Fi hotspot, or other resources to support their studies in…

Professor Junqiao Wu is the winner of the 2020 Bakar Prize! “A few years ago, Junqiao Wu, a UC Berkeley professor of material science and engineering, figured out how he could use thermal power to transform materials: roofs that adapt to temperatures and save energy, new types of sunglasses and even tools that could screen…

A Stay-at-Home Scientist’s Strategy for Synthesizing Sustainable Support Structures Academia can be isolating and toxic, and COVID just exacerbates this. How can scientists support our selves, each other, and our communities during COVID-19, and afterwards? How do we renounce misconduct and stand up for one another? What kind of world do we want to enable…

MSE Stands in Solidarity with our Black Community The MSE department supports the statements of Chancellor Carol Christ and Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Oscar Dubón Jr. sent to the campus community on Friday, May 29th. We stand in solidarity with our Black community and all who are suffering. We are a community and a…

Why did you choose to study MSE? I was drawn to the field of MSE because of its interdisciplinary nature and broad areas of impact. I was first exposed to materials sciences and engineering through research experiences. As a Chemical Engineering undergraduate, I had the opportunity to do research that involved engineering materials for targeted…

Why did you choose to study MSE? I loved the nanomaterials lab that I worked in during high school, and after I naively told my mentor that it inspired me to study “chemical engineering” in college, she responded, “Oh, OK, but you do know this field is called ‘materials science’ right?” Then in my undergrad,…

The Interplay Between Thermodynamics and Kinetics in the Solid-state Synthesis of Layered Oxides In contrast to the prevailing intuition that solid-state reactions are slow, beamline experiments here show that non-equilibrium phases appear within only a few minutes of starting a ceramic synthesis reaction. These fast-forming intermediates consume most of the thermodynamic reaction energy, resulting in…

Why did you choose to study MSE? I was a Chemical Engineering major with an emphasis in nanotechnology in undergrad. Part of that degree involved spending some time in a research lab and taking some materials classes. That exposed me to the big picture problems that materials scientist and engineers tackle. I’ve also always been…

Enhanced Atomic-scale Ferroelectricity Directly on Silicon Scientists at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, led by S. Cheema and Prof. S. Salahuddin, have managed to stabilize ferroelectric order in ultrathin doped hafnium oxide on silicon. Their recent paper published in Nature not only demonstrates ferroelectricity down to single nanometer thickness (equivalent to two unit cells of…

Off the Scales: Fish Armor Both Tough and Flexible

Long-term loan program for students who require laptops, WiFi hotspots, and other tech resources

Professor Junqiao Wu is the winner of the 2020 Bakar Prize!

A Stay-at-Home Scientist’s Strategy for Synthesizing Sustainable Support Structures

MSE Stands in Solidarity with our Black Community

Student Spotlight: Steven Alvarez

Student Spotlight: Enze Chen

The Interplay Between Thermodynamics and Kinetics in the Solid-state Synthesis of Layered Oxides

Student Spotlight: Martin Siron

Enhanced Atomic-scale Ferroelectricity Directly on Silicon