Department of Materials Science

Materials science is an essential and vibrant research field, which lays the foundation of the modern technological society. Discovering new materials to cope the need of continuously growing and changing world, materials science leads the other disciplines. It also investigates the emerging research to explore new properties and applications of already existing materials.  Department of Materials Science focuses on interdisciplinary research and teaching, believing in strong collaboration across disciplines. Both the experimental and theoretical approaches work side by side making Department of Materials Science a prominent one among others in IoP-IUB.

Materials Simulation Group (MSG) works on various techniques to simulate the properties including structural, mechanical, thermal, spin polarized electronic, magnetic and optical. MSG is proud to have published numerous research articles in leading international journals. The group has established international (USA, UK and China) and national (PU, IIU and UET-Taxila) level collaborations. For more details, please visit https://msgiub.com.

On experimental side, we mainly focus on synthesis, growth, fabrication and characterization of nanoparticles/ nanomaterials/ nano devices with the aim on their useful applications for the betterment of society like water and oil treatment, energy storage, sensors, superconductors, thin films as micro- & nano-devices, heat mirrors, energy efficient/saving technologies, materials for optoelectronics, solar applications, reduction of green-house effects in automobiles, etc. We have well-established research on electrical, optical, surface  and thermal properties on the sub-micron scale, and also on the utilization of these phenomena in various applications.  Available infrastructure for  growth &  fabrications of such materials  allows us to use sophisticated methods for the development of nanoscale structures for research and also for prototype level device fabrication. We are increasingly involved in multidisciplinary nanoscience research at the national and international level.

Wide variety of solution-based and other synthesis techniques are currently being utilize such as hydrothermal, green-synthesis, sol-gel, solid state reactionalong with physical deposition methods such as coating units, electron beam etc.  On the characterization part, we focus on structural, morphological, optical, magnetic and electrical characterization of micro and nano materials/ devices through various techniques including XRD, AFM, SEM, TEM, UV-VIS-IR spectroscopy, Photoluminescence (PL), Raman, FTIR, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), IV- characteristics, VSM, etc.