Materials research involves the creation, characterization, and manipulation of substances and structures for applications. Because physical substances are involved in all devices, engineers must understand how materials behave, how they can be controlled, and how they can be enhanced for specific purposes. Consequently, Materials research is a critical area that appears in many groups in IEPE. Efforts often involve the complete development chain from creating a new material, revealing its fundamental properties, inducing useful structures, and exploiting the obtained knowledge in a device.

Within IEPE, Materials research is currently targeting the following areas:

• Materials for catalysis

• Materials for solar energy

• Materials for energy storage and batteries

• Materials for photonic devices

• Materials for sensing

• Nanomaterials

• Nanofabrication