Materials Science

Aim

The aim of the course is to provide a broad basic understanding of materials, their properties and possible applications. After taking this course the students must be able to

• explain the connection between a material's properties and use.
• construct and use phase diagrams based on a thermodynamic description.
• describe the properties of structural and functional materials based on an atomistic view.
• argue possible applications of a material based on its properties and be able to infer a material choice based on required properties.

Content

The course provides an overview of the fundamental concepts in materials science. It concerns different classes of solid functional materials including metallic (elemental metals and alloys), semiconducting (in particular ceramics) and insulating solid matter as well as melts. Perfect crystals as well as defects including vacancies, interstitials and dislocations are discussed. The course gives furthermore an introduction to the thermodynamic description of elemental and binary systems including: Phase diagrams, equilibria in solid solution, metastable states, phase transformations, and atomic processes, e.g., grain growth and diffusion. It discusses the micro- and nanostructure of materials, and provides an introduction to multiphase materials. The foundation of selected experimental and numerical techniques, as well as, emerging machine learning approaches in the context of materials science will be introduced. Finally, the relationships between theory, materials synthesis, structure/bonding and properties will be discussed, including electronic and magnetic properties, the description of elasticity, plasticity, and failure mechanisms.