Programmed, 60 places available

Admission to Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology requires a bachelor degree in engineering (industrial) chemistry or physic and B1 level in English. Additional learning requirements can be required in the first year of the course if the initial requirements are not met. An interview (including Skype or similar tools) is also required

Campus Ecotekne, Via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce (Italy)

The highly interdisciplinary nature of this degree has been allowed since 1996, and will allow, to find employment in companies operating in different sectors, such as aeronautic fabrication, transformation of metallic, polymeric and composite materials, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceutical and many others. In addition to this, the possibility of operating in research centers and technological consultancy companies, exploited by a smaller but significant percentage of graduates, must be mentioned. Materials engineers, compared to the more traditional specialization of industrial engineering, has a high ability to adapt to designing with traditional and innovative materials and has a deeper knowledge of materials processing.

Maria Grazia Gnoni (mariagrazia.gnoni@unisalento.it)

The course will focus on the relationship among processing, properties and structure of all materials of industrial interest, i.e. metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, biomaterials, semiconductors. Nanomaterials and their applications in electronic and other fields are also object of the courses. During the first year fundamentals of chemistry and physics of materials and of transport phenomena are provided. Then the study will focus on fabrication technologies and properties of the mentioned materials. In the second year specific courses are devoted to biomedical applications and nanotechnology for electronic. While maintaining the connotation of an engineering degree, it has chemistry, physics, electronics, as well as industrial and mechanical engineering of materials among its teachings. The "cross-fertilization" between different disciplinary fields, which, pushing the trainees to embrace the problems in an organic and complete way, teaches them to analyze new problems using different approaches. Visits to industrial plants are usually performed.

The final exam consists in a thesis typically developed either during the internship or in the labs of university. Students are required to develop autonomous experimental work and mathematical modelling of properties, processing or mechanical behaviour. The thesis consists of a written paper organised into sections agreed by the student and supervisor and reviewed by another professor. The thesis will be defended in a public exams and evaluated by a commission of 7 professors

Stage can be performed using Erasmus Traineeship grants in different EU companies and univeristies, depending on the availability and the topic. Among others, partners for stage can be GKN Fokker (NL), University of Leuven (B), University College of Dublin (EIRE) etc.