Materials Sciences And Engineering Program

Delivering World-Leading Fundamental Materials Research

ORNL’s Materials Sciences and Engineering (MSE) Program is one of the largest US Department of Energy (DOE)-Basic Energy Sciences (BES)-MSE portfolios, involving more than 100 scientific staff, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and research support staff.

The MSE program’s trailblazing scientific research aligns well with ORNL’s priority research directions in advanced materials, high-performance computing, neutron scattering, and energy. ORNL’s MSE portfolio has specialized expertise to predict, synthesize, characterize, and ultimately control materials systems over broad scales of time and space with the ultimate goal of delivering world-leading fundamental materials research to accelerate innovations in energy technologies. Quantum materials, structural materials, energy materials, and soft matter are the classes of materials MSE research focuses on to deliver fundamental science. In addition, ORNL’s MSE program develops approaches for predicting and characterizing the structure and behavior of materials, making extensive use of and contributions to DOE user facilities at ORNL, including the Spallation Neutron Source, High-Flux Isotope Reactor, Center for Nanophase Materials Science, and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.