Materials Laboratory
Course facts
- Payment: Free, no certificate
- Credits: Non Credit
- Learning style: Self-paced, start anytime
- Resources: Image Gallery; Lecture Videos; Written Assignments with Examples
MIT OpenCourseWare details
- As taught in: Fall 2006
- Department: Materials Science and Engineering
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A sophomore materials lab on energetics, bonding and structure, with report formats, examples and videos, built around communication practice.
Energetics, bonding and structure decide how materials behave, and this sophomore laboratory lets students measure those connections directly. Taken alongside a core lecture subject, it runs in four intensive week-long periods of experiments illustrating quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and structure. Students also practice technical communication heavily, reporting results through a poster, a journal article, a technical report and a memo.
What You Will Achieve
- Quantify energy, bonding and order with characterization techniques
- Keep a laboratory notebook of procedure, data and analysis
- Write a journal article and technical report on an experiment
- Relate structural transitions to material properties
Program Overview
Polymers, Glasses and Crystals
Structure and the thermodynamics of real materials.
- Polymer structures
- Structure of borate glasses
- Thermal energy storage
- Crystal polymorphs
Quantum Models and Free Energy
Seeing theory in small-scale experiments.
- Quantum dots
- Batteries
- Corrosion
- Ferromagnetic transitions
Bonds, Vibrations and Phase Diagrams
How electrons and atoms set properties.
- Electron wavefunctions
- Phonon curves
- Eutectics
- Order disorder transitions
Course Completion
Job Outlook
These skills are relevant to materials research, laboratory characterization work and technical reporting in engineering.
Good for: Materials science instructors and students who want to see how a laboratory subject and its communication training are organized.
Keep in mind: You cannot run these experiments alone, since they need specialized instruments and safety training. Published materials are mainly report guidelines, examples, an image gallery and videos, with no lab procedures listed.
Bottom line: Most useful as a model for teaching laboratory reporting, and less so as a self-study course.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do the lab weeks work?
Six separate four-hour experiments run at once, grouped into three themes. Each lab group does three experiments per lab week, twelve sessions over the semester, half of those offered.
What instruments are used?
Tools include differential scanning calorimetry, x-ray diffraction, atomic force and scanning electron microscopy, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
How are results reported?
Through a different format each lab week: a poster, a journal article, a technical report, and a memo written during a three-hour final exam period using only the lab notebook.
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