The LSU Material Characterization Center (LSUMCC) is a university-wide user facility for the microstructural, structural and chemical characterization of materials. This center is hosted by the Mechanical Engineering Department and is available to researchers from LSU, other institution and industry.

The MCC currently consists of several state-of-the art pieces of equipment including a JEOL 2010 high-resolution transmission electron microscope and EDAX EDS system, a Kratos AXIS-165 XPS/Auger surface analysis system and a Hitachi S-3600N variable pressure SEM/EDS system, a FEI Quanta 3D FEG dual beam SEM/FIB system, a Rigaku MiniFlex X-ray Diffractometer, and TEM specimen preparation facility.

The MCC offers comprehensive techniques and capabilities that are crucial to modern materials research and analysis for both university and industry in the field of metals/alloy, semiconductors, ceramic oxides and polymers. Facilities in MCC can provide information from the surface structure such as morphology/roughness, composition and the element chemical state and distribution of, to the internal and local microstructure such as crystallographic structure, grain size and distribution of nanostructured materials, defects precipitates, grain boundaries and interfaces at the atomic level of a various kind of materials such as metal/alloys, ceramics, semiconductors and polymer/plastics in a variety of sample forms including bulk, coatings/thin films, multilayers, micro/nano patterning structures, powder, even solutions, etc.