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Advanced Materials/Nanotechnology

The manipulation and creation of material with new characteristics and properties is one of the most exciting areas in engineering today. Engineers in this area create new particles by controlling material composition at the molecular and atomic level, where it is measured in nanometers (one nm equals one one-billionth of a meter), hence the term "nanotechnology."

The materials they create provide cleaner, safer and smarter products for the home, environment, computers, communications, medicine, transportation, agriculture and industry in general. Advances in the field have already made the paint on your car more protective, improved the biocompatibility of artificial joints, facilitated the dissolving of oral medication into your bloodstream, and kept stains from taking hold on your new living room carpet.

Focus Areas

Engineers in this field study the factors that cause materials to display certain properties, seek to improve existing materials and search for new materials with enhanced properties that can be used in communications, biomedicine and a host of other application areas.

Lehigh faculty are internationally renowned in this area, including specific expertise in microscopy as well as application areas such as optical engineering, metal forming, biomaterials and polymer science.

Students in this area:

Process and analyze ceramics, glasses, metals, alloys and polymers, as well as electronic and optical materials
Characterize the mechanical, structural, chemical, optical and electrical properties of materials
Apply materials to such issues as energy, life sciences, microelectronics and devices, large structures, telecommunications and homeland security

Just up in size from the nanoscale is the microscale, where engineers work in microelectronics, applying advanced materials and technologies to integrated circuitry, communications networks, computers and similar devices.

Research and Resources

Lehigh has one of, if not the, top academic microscopy centers in the world. This provides our students and researchers a virtually unmatched capability in determining the characteristics of materials at the very smallest scale—a tremendous resource for students interested in nanoengineering. Lehigh's Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (CAMN) boasts some of the most powerful electron microscopes available—so advanced that we can examine a material's structure atom by atom, and then take what we've learned and produce wires, "islands" on a substrate, or tiny particles with specific properties. Other facilities include labs for microelectronics research, optical materials and technologies, and microelectro-mechanics.

Some of the projects that represent Lehigh's significant endeavors in this area include the following:

A team of faculty and student researchers is working to find ways that specially engineered biocompatible glass can be used to help heal broken bones
Nanoparticles made at Lehigh have reduced contaminant levels in sites in New Jersey and Florida by 96 percent over a four-week period
Lehigh engineers are working with NASA to design and test the microshutter system that forms the heart of the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble.

Success Stories

The ability to peer through incredibly powerful modern instrumentation to observe and manipulate materials at the atomic level allows engineers in Advanced Materials/Nanotechnology to improve products used in communications, medicine, environmental mitigation and a wide range of other important applications.

	The phenomenon known as liquid metal embrittlement has baffled metallurgists for a century. Now, a team of Lehigh ceramics researchers led by materials science and engineering professor Martin Harmer has shed light on LME by obtaining atomic-scale images of unprecedented resolution. more >
	Materials science and engineering students have again swept the annual International Metallographic Competition, winning seven ribbons and anchoring Lehigh’s reputation as one of the world’s top facilities for metallography research. more >
	A fellowship from Germany’s largest research funding organization is helping Lehigh engineering professor Wojciech Misiolek push for improvements to metal processing. more >
	Professors William Luyben, Mayuresh Kothare, and Anthony McHugh in chemical engineering earn honors from their fields' most prestigious professional societies. more >
	Sabrina Jedlicka, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and John Coulter, professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, are developing advanced materials that will one day help biomedical researchers and clinicians to consistently direct adult stem cells to differentiate into mature tissues such as bone, muscle and brain. more >
	As an undergraduate, Greg Brentrup '08 played violin in the orchestra, competed with the downhill ski team and aided Dr. Hassan Moawad of the University of Alexandria in refining a technique for glassmaking used in a glass-bone scaffold project as part of his sophomore-year internship. more >
	Jesse Nawrocki '95 (M.S. '99, Ph.D. '01) developed a polymeric coating of polyolefin wax powders that makes surgical needles penetrate the skin more easily. The coating provides less hand stress for the doctor, and the needles are less likely to break. more >
	Graduate students in chemistry and in chemical engineering won three prizes recently at one of the premier conferences in the northeastern U.S. that is devoted to catalysis research. more >
	Ahmed Issa '09 turned his own study of the properties of gold-ruby glass into a collaboration among scientists from five continents. more >
	William Van Geertruyden '98, '00M, '04P, general manager of EMV Technologies, explores how ceramic filters that will improve the efficiency of kidney dialysis. more >