The Department of Materials Engineering studies the properties of various materials and explores how to apply them in real life. Students study physical chemistry, introductory mechanics, modern physics, and more, and conduct research in various fields such as inorganic semiconductors, biomaterials, and organic semiconductors to lead technological innovation.
What objects are around you right now? Pencil cases, notebooks, clothes, computers, watches, etc. are all made up of different materials and are part of our daily lives. Materials are closely related to human life, and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is the place to study them. The devices and tools that make our lives more convenient and enriching are all the result of utilizing the properties of various materials to the fullest. The development of materials has evolved in parallel with the progress of human civilization and is becoming increasingly important in modern society.
In the 1900s, the departments of metallurgy, inorganic materials engineering, and fiber polymer engineering were merged, and in the 21st century, the Department of Materials Engineering was established, covering a wide range of disciplines including new materials. In other universities, except Pusan National University, the department is registered as the ‘Department of New Materials Engineering’, and the only difference is the name, but they all cover similar fields of study. The official name of the department is Materials Science & Engineering, which is a combination of science and engineering. It studies the properties of different materials and explores how they can be applied in real life.
The three-year program is interdisciplinary in nature. This can lead to a shallow depth of learning in certain areas, which is why about half of the undergraduates go on to graduate school. Among the required courses for the major, physical chemistry is fundamental to materials engineering, where you’ll learn about Gibbs free energy, phase equilibrium, and more. Gibbs free energy is an indicator of whether a reaction can proceed under certain conditions of pressure and temperature, while phase equilibrium is a general picture of whether a substance is a gas, liquid, or solid at a certain pressure and temperature. In Introduction to Mechanics, a parallel course to Physical Chemistry, you will learn the theoretical conditions for stable design of structures such as bridges and cables. For example, when building a suspension bridge, the average wind strength is given to calculate the length of the rope that can withstand it and the weight of the bridge. In this case, the bridge will be made of different materials, and if you find out the properties of each material, such as the coefficient of thermal expansion and the elastic constant, in the appendix, you can also find out how much the bridge will deform due to temperature or external pressure. While we learn the mechanics of these large structures, we also learn about microscopic phenomena, such as the movement of electrons in semiconductors, which is what modern physics is all about. It introduces the concept of an electron function called the pseudo-electron (Ψ), which describes the position of an electron in space and time, and uses this function to study the possibility of electron movement. Using these concepts, students analyze the phenomenon of electron movement in semiconductors and learn theories that can increase their efficiency.
The scope of study in the Department of Materials Engineering is very broad. It starts with understanding the basic properties of materials and then explores how to develop and apply new materials. For example, new materials such as carbon nanotubes have a wide range of potential applications due to their unique strength and electrical properties. In addition, self-healing materials called smart materials and shape memory alloys, which have the ability to spontaneously deform or repair damage under certain conditions, are expected to play an important role in future innovative technologies.
Within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, students can take a variety of elective courses to learn about different areas, but one of the most popular areas is inorganic semiconductors. Within semiconductors, there are inorganic semiconductors and organic semiconductors, with inorganic semiconductors being traditionally stronger since the 2000s. In this field, students study the semiconductors that go into electronic devices and learn how to increase their efficiency, and about 77% of graduate students join electronics companies after earning their Ph.D. degrees from this lab, and the lab in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering produces the most papers in Korea every year.
In the 21st century, trends change rapidly from year to year, and certain fields become popular and then abandoned, while others are not recognized and suddenly become core areas. Therefore, even undergraduates are often confused about which major to pursue, but two areas that have recently been on the rise are biomaterials and organic semiconductors. In the case of biomaterials, students learn about biomedical materials such as artificial joints and implants, as well as functional biotechnology, which is responsible for detecting and destroying cancer cells in the body, etc. Organic semiconductors are used in all aspects of displays, from AMOLEDs, which are the liquid crystals of today’s devices. In addition, many future devices are focused on improving the clarity of liquid crystals by using organic light-emitting materials, so many graduate students are studying in this area. I also plan to continue studying organic semiconductors in graduate school.
Times are changing very fast, and in order to adapt to this, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is expanding the spectrum of elective courses in line with new trends. I think the flexibility of the department is one of its most attractive features, as it allows students to investigate and study various fields. Students in the Department of Materials Engineering are pushing the boundaries of materials science and engineering by taking on new challenges in an ever-changing technological environment. As such, the department plays an important role in shaping the technological innovations of the future, and students have the opportunity to continue learning and researching to keep up with these changes.
