Hi Hangchen Xu ,

This is just an opinion of what I realized after being a couple of years in the field: normally materials science tries to relate the structure of a material with the properties this material exhibits. When I say structure, this means at a molecular level, or at an atomic level or even a macroscopic level. When I say properties, this means either mechanical, thermal, conductive, biological, and so on.

It does not matter which type of materials your are interested in (i.e.: polymers, alloys, composites, etc.), the gain of knowledge in that relationship is extremely important, because it allows you to tailor de structure to achieve the properties you are looking for, for an specific application.

The way to do this is mostly experimental at the moment (by lab work and practical experiments), but a lot of theory is required as well. Theoretical investigations are a bit hard, since every little change in the type of material or the type of structure will have a different influence in different properties you are studying, but seeing the positive part, there is plenty of work to do.

Regarding the experiments per se, normally materials are tested mechanically, but there are thermal tests, microscopy tests, and in case you are aiming for some applications, conductive tests, or magnetic, or biological, and so.

Hope this helps a bit on your decision!

Dear Agustin Forchetti Casarino ,

Thank you for your answer, I couldn't agree more with you that every small change in the type of material or type of structure can have a different impact on the nature of what we are studying, and that's the beauty of it.So I hope that future research can help me understand the operation of this complex system of materials, and furthermore, I hope to establish some theories or models to reveal the relationships you mentioned, and then combine some experiments to verify them, even predict or design new materials.

This relationship is very important regardless of the material we studying, but it seems that most of the research directions of materials are focused on doing a lot of experiments to get better properties and data, maybe not focusing too much on the deeper principles inside the material. This is a bit off from what I thought, so I wonder if there is a research direction that is more in line with my ideas?

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Dear Hangchen Xu ,

Regarding your question, I am not sure which is the field that explores that in detail. I know that maybe your answer is more related to the physics field rather than the materials science field. Since you are looking for research based on the deeper principles in materials, normally these are ruled by electronic effects and so on, so maybe you could get some ideas when looking at the subject from a physics point of view, or maybe thermodynamic point of view as well.

Best regards,

Agustin

Dear Agustin Forchetti Casarino ,

Thank you for the reminder, I will try to pay more attention to looking at these issues from a physical perspective.

Best regards,

Hangchen