Materials science

Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries.

The intellectual origins of materials science stem from the Age of Enlightenment, when researchers began to use analytical thinking from chemistry, physics, and engineering to understand ancient, phenomenological observations in metallurgy and mineralogy. Materials science still incorporates elements of physics, chemistry, and engineering. As such, the field was long considered by academic institutions as a sub-field of these related fields. Beginning in the 1940s, materials science began to be more widely recognized as a specific and distinct field of science and engineering, and major technical universities around the world created dedicated schools for its study.

Materials scientists emphasize understanding how the history of a material (processing) influences its structure, and thus the material's properties and performance. The understanding of processing-structure-properties relationships is called the materials paradigm. This paradigm is used to advance understanding in a variety of research areas, including nanotechnology, biomaterials, and metallurgy.

Materials science is also an important part of forensic engineering and failure analysis – investigating materials, products, structures or components, which fail or do not function as intended, causing personal injury or damage to property. Such investigations are key to understanding, for example, the causes of various aviation accidents and incidents.

History

The material of choice of a given era is often a defining point. Phases such as Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Steel Age are historic, if arbitrary examples. Originally deriving from the manufacture of ceramics and its putative derivative metallurgy, materials science is one of the oldest forms of engineering and applied science. Modern materials science evolved directly from metallurgy, which itself evolved from the use of fire. A major breakthrough in the understanding of materials occurred in the late 19th century, when the American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs demonstrated that the thermodynamic properties related to atomic structure in various phases are related to the physical properties of a material. Important elements of modern materials science were products of the Space Race; the understanding and engineering of the metallic alloys, and silica and carbon materials, used in building space vehicles enabling the exploration of space. Materials science has driven, and been driven by, the development of revolutionary technologies such as rubbers, plastics, semiconductors, and biomaterials.

Before the 1960s (and in some cases decades after), many eventual materials science departments were metallurgy or ceramics engineering departments, reflecting the 19th and early 20th-century emphasis on metals and ceramics. The growth of materials science in the United States was catalyzed in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which funded a series of university-hosted laboratories in the early 1960s, "to expand the national program of basic research and training in the materials sciences." In comparison with mechanical engineering, the nascent material science field focused on addressing materials from the macro-level and on the approach that materials are designed on the basis of knowledge of behavior at the microscopic level. Due to the expanded knowledge of the link between atomic and molecular processes as well as the overall properties of materials, the design of materials came to be based on specific desired properties. The materials science field has since broadened to include every class of materials, including ceramics, polymers, semiconductors, magnetic materials, biomaterials, and nanomaterials, generally classified into three distinct groups: ceramics, metals, and polymers. The prominent change in materials science during the recent decades is active usage of computer simulations to find new materials, predict properties and understand phenomena.

Stone Age

The use of materials begins in the stone age. Typically materials such as bone, fibers, feathers, shells, animal skin, and clay were used for weapons, tools, jewelry, and shelter. The earliest tools were in the paleolithic age, called Oldowan. These were tools created from chipped rocks that would be used for scavenging purpose. As history carried on into the Mesolithic age, tools became more complex and symmetrical in design with sharper edges. Moving into the Neolithic age, agriculture began to develop as new was to form tools for farming were discovered. Nearing the end of the stone age, humans began using copper, gold, and silver as a material. Due to these metals softness, the general use was for ceremonial purposes and to create ornaments or decorations and did not replace other materials for use in tools. The simplicity of the tools used reflected on the simple understanding of the human species of the time.

Bronze Age

The use of copper had become very apparent to civilizations, such as its properties of elasticity and plasticity that allow it to be hammered into useful shapes, along with its ability to be melted and pored into intricate shapes. Although the advantages of copper were many, the materials was to soft to find large scale usefulness. Through experimentation or by chance, additions to copper lead to increased hardness of a new metal alloy, called bronze. Bronze was originally composed of copper and arsenic, forming arsenic bronze.

Iron Age

Iron-working came into prominence from about 1200 BCE.

In the 10th century BCE glass production began in ancient Near East. In the 3rd century BCE people in ancient India developed wootz steel, the first crucible steel. In the 1st century BCE glassblowing techniques flourished in Phoenicia. In the 2nd century CE steel-making became widespread in Han Dynasty China. The 4th century CE saw the production of the Iron pillar of Delhi, the oldest surviving example of corrosion-resistant steel.

Middle Ages

Proto-porcelain material has been discovered dating back to the Neolithic period, with shards of material found in archaeological sites from the Eastern Han period in China. These wares are estimated to have been fired from 1260 to 1300 °C. In the 8th century, porcelain was invented in Tang Dynasty China. Porcelain in china resulted in a methodical development of widely used kilns that increased the quality and quantity that procelain could be produced. Tin-glazing of ceramics is invented by Arabic chemists and potters in Basra, Iraq.

In the 9th century, stonepaste ceramics were invented in Iraq, and lustreware appeared in Mesopotamia.

In the 11th century, Damascus steel is developed in the Middle East. In the 15th century, Johann Gutenberg develops type metal alloy and Angelo Barovier invents cristallo, a clear soda-based glass.

Silicon Age

Further information: Silicon Age

Materials science became a major established discipline following the onset of the Silicon Age and Information Age, which began with the invention of the metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistor (MOSFET) by Mohamed M. Atalla at Bell Labs in 1959. This led to the development of modern computers and then mobile phones, with the need to make them smaller, faster and more powerful leading to materials science developing smaller and lighter materials capable of dealing with more complex calculations. This in turn enabled computers to be used to solve complex crystallographic calculations and automate crystallography experiments, allowing researchers to design more accurate and powerful techniques. Along with computers and crystallography, the development of laser technology from 1960 onwards led to the development of light-emitting diodes (used in DVD players and smartphones), fibre-optic communication (used in global telecommunications), and confocal microscopy, a key tool in materials science.

Mohamed Atalla, at the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Semiconductor Lab in the 1960s, launched a material science investigation program that provided a base technology for gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) and indium arsenide (InAs) devices. These devices became the core technology used by HP's Microwave Division to develop sweepers and network analyzers that pushed 20–40 GHz frequency, giving HP more than 90% of the military communications market.

Fundamentals

A material is defined as a substance (most often a solid, but other condensed phases can be included) that is intended to be used for certain applications. There are a myriad of materials around us; they can be found in anything from new and advanced materials that are being developed include nanomaterials, biomaterials, and energy materials to name a few.

The basis of materials science is studying the interplay between the structure of materials, the processing methods to make that material, and the resulting material properties. The complex combination of these produce the performance of a material in a specific application. Many features across many length scales impact material performance, from the constituent chemical elements, its microstructure, and macroscopic features from processing. Together with the laws of thermodynamics and kinetics materials scientists aim to understand and improve materials.

Research

Materials science is a highly active area of research. Together with materials science departments, physics, chemistry, and many engineering departments are involved in materials research. Materials research covers a broad range of topics; the following non-exhaustive list highlights a few important research areas.

Nanomaterials

Main article: Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 1000 nanometers (10⁻⁹ meter), but is usually 1 nm – 100 nm. Nanomaterials research takes a materials science based approach to nanotechnology, using advances in materials metrology and synthesis, which have been developed in support of microfabrication research. Materials with structure at the nanoscale often have unique optical, electronic, or mechanical properties. The field of nanomaterials is loosely organized, like the traditional field of chemistry, into organic (carbon-based) nanomaterials, such as fullerenes, and inorganic nanomaterials based on other elements, such as silicon. Examples of nanomaterials include fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, nanocrystals, etc.

Electronic, optical, and magnetic

Semiconductors, metals, and ceramics are used today to form highly complex systems, such as integrated electronic circuits, optoelectronic devices, and magnetic and optical mass storage media. These materials form the basis of our modern computing world, and hence research into these materials is of vital importance.

Semiconductors are a traditional example of these types of materials. They are materials that have properties that are intermediate between conductors and insulators. Their electrical conductivities are very sensitive to the concentration of impurities, which allows the use of doping to achieve desirable electronic properties. Hence, semiconductors form the basis of the traditional computer.

This field also includes new areas of research such as superconducting materials, spintronics, metamaterials, etc. The study of these materials involves knowledge of materials science and solid-state physics or condensed matter physics.

Computational materials science

Main article: Computational materials science

With continuing increases in computing power, simulating the behavior of materials has become possible. This enables materials scientists to understand behavior and mechanisms, design new materials, and explain properties formerly poorly understood. Efforts surrounding integrated computational materials engineering are now focusing on combining computational methods with experiments to drastically reduce the time and effort to optimize materials properties for a given application. This involves simulating materials at all length scales, using methods such as density functional theory, molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo, dislocation dynamics, phase field, finite element, and many more.

Industry

Radical materials advances can drive the creation of new products or even new industries, but stable industries also employ materials scientists to make incremental improvements and troubleshoot issues with currently used materials. Industrial applications of materials science include materials design, cost-benefit tradeoffs in industrial production of materials, processing methods (casting, rolling, welding, ion implantation, crystal growth, thin-film deposition, sintering, glassblowing, etc.), and analytic methods (characterization methods such as electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, calorimetry, nuclear microscopy (HEFIB), Rutherford backscattering, neutron diffraction, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), etc.).

Besides material characterization, the material scientist or engineer also deals with extracting materials and converting them into useful forms. Thus ingot casting, foundry methods, blast furnace extraction, and electrolytic extraction are all part of the required knowledge of a materials engineer. Often the presence, absence, or variation of minute quantities of secondary elements and compounds in a bulk material will greatly affect the final properties of the materials produced. For example, steels are classified based on 1/10 and 1/100 weight percentages of the carbon and other alloying elements they contain. Thus, the extracting and purifying methods used to extract iron in a blast furnace can affect the quality of steel that is produced.

Solid materials are generally grouped into three basic classifications: ceramics, metals, and polymers. This broad classification is based on the empirical makeup and atomic structure of the solid materials, and most solids fall into one of these broad categories. An item that is often made from each of these materials types is the beverage container. The material types used for beverage containers accordingly provide different advantages and disadvantages, depending on the material used. Ceramic (glass) containers are optically transparent, impervious to the passage of carbon dioxide, relatively inexpensive, and are easily recycled, but are also heavy and fracture easily. Metal (aluminum alloy) is relatively strong, is a good barrier to the diffusion of carbon dioxide, and is easily recycled. However, the cans are opaque, expensive to produce, and are easily dented and punctured. Polymers (polyethylene plastic) are relatively strong, can be optically transparent, are inexpensive and lightweight, and can be recyclable, but are not as impervious to the passage of carbon dioxide as aluminum and glass.

Semiconductors

Main article: Semiconductor

A semiconductor is a material that has a resistivity between a conductor and insulator. Modern day electronics run on semiconductors, and the industry had an estimated US$530 billion market in 2021. Its electronic properties can be greatly altered through intentionally introducing impurities in a process referred to as doping. Semiconductor materials are used to build diodes, transistors, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and analog and digital electric circuits, among their many uses. Semiconductor devices have replaced thermionic devices like vacuum tubes in most applications. Semiconductor devices are manufactured both as single discrete devices and as integrated circuits (ICs), which consist of a number—from a few to millions—of devices manufactured and interconnected on a single semiconductor substrate.

Of all the semiconductors in use today, silicon makes up the largest portion both by quantity and commercial value. Monocrystalline silicon is used to produce wafers used in the semiconductor and electronics industry. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is the second most popular semiconductor used. Due to its higher electron mobility and saturation velocity compared to silicon, it is a material of choice for high-speed electronics applications. These superior properties are compelling reasons to use GaAs circuitry in mobile phones, satellite communications, microwave point-to-point links and higher frequency radar systems. Other semiconductor materials include germanium, silicon carbide, and gallium nitride and have various applications.

Relation with other fields

Materials science evolved, starting from the 1950s because it was recognized that to create, discover and design new materials, one had to approach it in a unified manner. Thus, materials science and engineering emerged in many ways: renaming and/or combining existing metallurgy and ceramics engineering departments; splitting from existing solid state physics research (itself growing into condensed matter physics); pulling in relatively new polymer engineering and polymer science; recombining from the previous, as well as chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering; and more.

The field of materials science and engineering is important both from a scientific perspective, as well as for applications field. Materials are of the utmost importance for engineers (or other applied fields) because usage of the appropriate materials is crucial when designing systems. As a result, materials science is an increasingly important part of an engineer's education.

Materials physics is the use of physics to describe the physical properties of materials. It is a synthesis of physical sciences such as chemistry, solid mechanics, solid state physics, and materials science. Materials physics is considered a subset of condensed matter physics and applies fundamental condensed matter concepts to complex multiphase media, including materials of technological interest. Current fields that materials physicists work in include electronic, optical, and magnetic materials, novel materials and structures, quantum phenomena in materials, nonequilibrium physics, and soft condensed matter physics. New experimental and computational tools are constantly improving how materials systems are modeled and studied and are also fields when materials physicists work in.

The field is inherently interdisciplinary, and the materials scientists or engineers must be aware and make use of the methods of the physicist, chemist and engineer. Conversely, fields such as life sciences and archaeology can inspire the development of new materials and processes, in bioinspired and paleoinspired approaches. Thus, there remain close relationships with these fields. Conversely, many physicists, chemists and engineers find themselves working in materials science due to the significant overlaps between the fields.

Emerging technologies

Emerging technology	Status	Potentially marginalized technologies	Potential applications	Related articles
Aerogel	Hypothetical, experiments, diffusion, early uses	Traditional insulation, glass	Improved insulation, insulative glass if it can be made clear, sleeves for oil pipelines, aerospace, high-heat & extreme cold applications
Amorphous metal	Experiments	Kevlar	Armor
Conductive polymers	Research, experiments, prototypes	Conductors	Lighter and cheaper wires, antistatic materials, organic solar cells
Femtotechnology, picotechnology	Hypothetical	Present nuclear	New materials; nuclear weapons, power
Fullerene	Experiments, diffusion	Synthetic diamond and carbon nanotubes (Buckypaper)	Programmable matter
Graphene	Hypothetical, experiments, diffusion, early uses	Silicon-based integrated circuit	Components with higher strength to weight ratios, transistors that operate at higher frequency, lower cost of display screens in mobile devices, storing hydrogen for fuel cell powered cars, filtration systems, longer-lasting and faster-charging batteries, sensors to diagnose diseases	Potential applications of graphene
High-temperature superconductivity	Cryogenic receiver front-end (CRFE) RF and microwave filter systems for mobile phone base stations; prototypes in dry ice; Hypothetical and experiments for higher temperatures	Copper wire, semiconductor integral circuits	No loss conductors, frictionless bearings, magnetic levitation, lossless high-capacity accumulators, electric cars, heat-free integral circuits and processors
LiTraCon	Experiments, already used to make Europe Gate	Glass	Building skyscrapers, towers, and sculptures like Europe Gate
Metamaterials	Hypothetical, experiments, diffusion	Classical optics	Microscopes, cameras, metamaterial cloaking, cloaking devices
Metal foam	Research, commercialization	Hulls	Space colonies, floating cities
Multi function structures	Hypothetical, experiments, some prototypes, few commercial	Composite materials	Wide range, e.g., self-health monitoring, self-healing material, morphing
Nanomaterials: carbon nanotubes	Hypothetical, experiments, diffusion, early uses	Structural steel and aluminium	Stronger, lighter materials, the space elevator	Potential applications of carbon nanotubes, carbon fiber
Programmable matter	Hypothetical, experiments	Coatings, catalysts	Wide range, e.g., claytronics, synthetic biology
Quantum dots	Research, experiments, prototypes	LCD, LED	Quantum dot laser, future use as programmable matter in display technologies (TV, projection), optical data communications (high-speed data transmission), medicine (laser scalpel)
Silicene	Hypothetical, research	Field-effect transistors

Subdisciplines

The main branches of materials science stem from the four main classes of materials: ceramics, metals, polymers and composites.

• Ceramic engineering
• Metallurgy
• Polymer science and engineering
• Composite engineering

There are additionally broadly applicable, materials independent, endeavors.

• Materials characterization (spectroscopy, microscopy, diffraction)
• Computational materials science
• Materials informatics and selection

There are also relatively broad focuses across materials on specific phenomena and techniques.

• Crystallography
• Surface science
• Tribology
• Microelectronics

Related or interdisciplinary fields

• Condensed matter physics, solid-state physics and solid-state chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Mineralogy
• Supramolecular chemistry
• Biomaterials science

Professional societies

• American Ceramic Society
• ASM International
• Association for Iron and Steel Technology
• Materials Research Society
• The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

See also

• Bio-based material
• Bioplastic
• Forensic materials engineering
• List of emerging materials science technologies
• List of materials science journals
• List of materials analysis methods
• Materials science in science fiction
• Timeline of materials technology

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