Program Overview

Are you interested in learning more about the science and engineering behind the electronic, optical, and magnetic materials that make up our modern world? Are you an undergraduate studying chemistry, physics, or engineering, or are you a graduate of one of these fields looking to grow your knowledge base? Would you like to explore a new field while building upon your knowledge in your primary field of specialization?

The MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering would like to invite you to pursue an Materials for Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Devices xMinor on edX. This program includes intermediate and advanced level undergraduate coursework that, together with your undergraduate science or engineering degree, will prepare you for employment or graduate study in fields relating to electronic, optical and magnetic materials science and engineering.

The first course in this series, 3.012Sx: Structure of Materials, will provide you with an introduction some of the most fundamental concepts in materials science. You will learn to describe the underlying structure of materials, develop a basic understanding of crystallography, and learn how structure influences the properties of materials. You will explore the structure of various types of materials– crystalline, non-crystalline, and liquid crystalline, and this knowledge will lay the groundwork for more advanced coursework. In the second course, 3.024x: Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials, you will learn to use the principles of quantum mechanics, solid state physics, and electricity & magnetism to describe the origins of the electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of materials. In the final course, 3.15x: Electrical, Optical, and Magnetic Materials and Devices, you will take the fundamentals that you learned in previous courses and learn how these principles are applied in the design of electronic, optical and magnetic devices. Finally, you will demonstrate your learning by completing a comprehensive, proctored final program examination.

What is an xMinor? An MITx xMinor is a sequence of intermediate and advanced undergraduate courses, plus at least one proctored exam. xMinors are valuable additions to an undergraduate education; they may open additional career options for you or may strengthen your preparation for a Masters program. The courses are drawn from MIT curricula; some universities may incorporate them into their own curricula, offering them to their students as ways to enhance their undergraduate experience.

Recommended prerequisites: one year of introductory college-level calculus, chemistry and physics; differential equations.

What you will learn

  • You will develop an understanding of the materials and devices essential to modern display technologies, such as the structure of liquid crystals and the design principles used to tailor light emitting diodes
  • You will receive a solid grounding in electronic, optical, and magnetic materials science, which will give you the background to undertake future studies fields such as advanced materials and electronic materials
  • You will have knowledge of the science of photovoltaic technology and design, preparing you to contribute to the future of clean energy solutions
  • You will know the fundamental operating principles of optical fibers and optoelectronic devices
  • You will understand the origins of the magnetic behavior of materials and the operating principles behind magnetic storage media

Program Class List

1
Structure of Materials

Course Details
Discover the structure of the materials that make up our modern world and learn how this underlying structure influences the properties and performance of these materials.

2
Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials

Course Details
Discover the physical principles behind diodes, light-emitting devices, and memories.

3
Electrical, Optical & Magnetic Materials and Devices

Course Details
In 3.15x we will explore the electrical, optical, and magnetic properties of materials and learn how electronic devices are designed to exploit these properties.

4
Capstone Exam – Materials for Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Devices

Course Details
Take the Comprehensive Exam in Materials for Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Devices to earn the MITx xMinor credential.

Meet your instructors

Polina Anikeeva

Class of 1942 Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Polina Anikeeva received her BS in Physics from St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University in 2003. After graduation, she spent a year at the Los Alamos National Lab where she developed photovoltaic cells based on quantum dots. In 2004 she enrolled in a PhD program in Materials Science at MIT and graduated in 2009 with her thesis dedicated to the design of light emitting devices based on organic materials and nanoparticles. She completed her postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Stanford University, where she created devices for optical stimulation and electrical recording from neural circuits. Polina joined the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT in July 2011, where she is now a Class of 1942 career development associate professor. Her lab focuses on the development of flexible and minimally invasive materials and devices for neural recording, stimulation and repair. Polina is also a recipient of NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, Dresselhaus Fund Award, and the Technology Review TR35 among others. If you would like to learn more about Prof. Anikeeva’s research interests, take a look at her talk at TEDx Cambridge.

Silvija Gradečak

Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Caroline Ross

Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT
Caroline Ross is Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her undergraduate and PhD degrees from Cambridge University, UK, was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, and worked at Komag, a hard disk company, before joining MIT. Prof. Ross studies the magnetic properties of thin films and nanostructures for data storage and logic applications, and methods for creating nanoscale structures based on directed self-assembly and lithography.

Jessica Sandland

Lecturer & Digital Learning Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jessica Sandland is a Lecturer in the Department of Material Science and Engineering and an MITx Digital Learning Scientist. Jessica leads online learning initiatives in DMSE, creating MOOCs and designing blended courses for MIT students. She has coordinated the development of a wide variety of DMSE’s online courses.

Program Overview

Develop the fundamental skills needed for global excellence in manufacturing and competitiveness with the Principles of Manufacturing MicroMasters Credential, designed and delivered by MIT’s #1-world ranked Mechanical Engineering department.

This program provides students with a fundamental basis for understanding and controlling rate, quality and cost in a manufacturing enterprise.

The Principles of Manufacturing are a set of elements common to all manufacturing industries that revolve around the concepts of flow and variations. These principles have emerged from working closely with manufacturing industries at both the research and operational levels.

Targeted towards graduate-level engineers, product designers, and technology developers with an interest in a career in advanced manufacturing, the program will help learners understand and apply these principles to product and process design, factory and supply chain design, and factory operations.

This curriculum focusses on the analysis, characterization and control of flow and variation at different levels of the enterprise through the following subject areas:

  • Unit Process Variation and Control: Modeling and controlling temporal and spatial variation in unit processes
  • Factory Level System Variation and Control: Modeling and controlling flows in manufacturing systems with stochastic elements and inputs.
  • Supply Chain – System Variation and Control: How to operate and design optimal manufacturing-centered supply chains.
  • Business Flows: Understanding the uses and flow of business information to start up, scale up and operate a manufacturing facility.

What you will learn

  • A new perspective for design and operational decision making at all levels of manufacturing, in the context of volume manufacturing, where rate, quality, cost and flexibility are the key metrics
  • How to operate and control unit processes to ensure maximum quality using basic and advanced statistical and feedback control methods
  • How to design and operate systems of processes with optimal capacity, resilience and inventory
  • How to design and operate optimal supply chain systems
  • The financial underpinnings of a manufacturing enterprise, including new ventures

Program Class List

1
Manufacturing Process Control I

Course Details
Learn how to model variations in manufacturing processes and develop methods to reduce and control deterministic variations to achieve consistent process quality.

2
Manufacturing Systems I

Course Details
Learn about manufacturing systems and ways to analyze them in terms of material flow and storage, information flow, capacities, and times and durations of events, especially random events.

3
Management in Engineering: Accounting and Planning

Course Details
Experience what it is like to manage within an engineering enterprise. Develop the business skills you need to take on the variety of challenges facing managers in the field. This course was formerly known as Management in Engineering I.

4
Supply Chains for Manufacturing: Inventory Analytics

Course Details
Learn about effective supply chain strategies for companies that operate globally, with emphasis on how to plan and integrate supply chain components into a coordinated system. This course was formerly known as Supply Chains for Manufacturing I.

5
Manufacturing Process Control II

Course Details
Learn how to control process variation, including methods to design experiments that capture process behavior and understand means to control variability.

6
Supply Chains for Manufacturing: Capacity Analytics

Course Details
Learn about various models, methods and software tools to help make better decisions for system design in manufacturing systems and supply chains.. This course was formerly known as Supply Chains for Manufacturing II.

7
Manufacturing Systems II

Course Details
Learn how to analyze manufacturing systems to optimize performance and control costs and better understand the flow of material and information.

8
Management in Engineering: Strategy and Leadership

Course Details
Analyze challenging real-life business cases that engineering managers face on a variety of topics. Apply management tools and relevant skills to manage innovation. This course was formerly known as Management in Engineering II

Meet Your Instructors

Stanley B. Gershwin

Senior Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stanley B. Gershwin is a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. He received the B.S. degree in Engineering Mathematics from Columbia University, New York, New York, in 1966; and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1967 and 1971.

Sean Willems

Haslam Chair in Supply Chain Analytics at University of Tennessee Sean Willems is the Haslam Chair in Supply Chain Analytics at the University of Tennessee's Haslam College of Business. In 2000, he co-founded Optiant, a provider of multi-echelon inventory optimization tools, which was later acquired by Logility, Inc. He has been a visiting professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management since 2016. His work with companies such as Hewlett Packard, Proctor & Gamble, and Intel has led to finalist selections for the 2003, 2010, and 2017 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
Jung-Hoon Chun - Pearson Advance

Jung-Hoon Chun

Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jung-Hoon Chun is director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity and a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has been a member of the MIT Mechanical Engineering faculty since 1989, and has over 100 publications and patents to his credit.

Stephen Graves

Abraham J. Siegel Professor of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stephen Graves is the Abraham J. Siegel Professor of Management and a Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has a joint appoitnemnt with the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. Graves develops and applies operations research models and methods to solve problems in manufacturing and distribution systems and in service operations. Graves holds an AB in mathematics and social sciences and an MBA from Dartmouth College, and an MS and a PhD from the University of Rochester.

Duane Boning

Co-Director, MIT Leaders for Global Operations Program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dr. Duane S. Boning is the Clarence J. LeBel Professor in Electrical Engineering, and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the EECS Department at MIT. He is currently Director of the MIT/Masdar Institute Cooperative Program. Dr. Boning received his S.B. degrees in electrical engineering and in computer science in 1984, and his S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering in 1986 and 1991, respectively, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
David Hardt - Pearson Advance

David Hardt

Ralph E. and Evelyn F. Cross Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Hardt is a graduate of Lafayette College (BSME, 1972) and MIT (SM, PhD, 1978). He has been a member of the Mechanical Engineering faculty at MIT since 1979. His disciplinary focus is system dynamics and control as applied to manufacturing.

Abbott Weiss

Senior Lecturer, Supply Chain Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Throughout his career, Abbott Weiss has been on the leading edge of supply chain thinking and practice--designing and executing powerful business solutions integrating multi-billion dollar global transportation, logistics, order fulfillment, manufacturing, customer services, planning, and materials systems. He is currently a consultant and a Senior Lecturer at MIT in supply chain management.