| Materials Science |
Article Index for Materials |
Website Links For Materials Science |
Information AboutMaterials Science |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MATERIALS SCIENCE | |
| materials science | |
| building engineeringmaterials science | |
| building engineering | |
| chemistry | |
| applied and interdisciplinary physics | |
|
Materials science is the multidisciplinary field relating the performance and function of matter in any and all applications to its micro, nano, and atomic-structure, and vice versa. It is closely related to Applied Physics , Chemical Engineering and Chemistry , Bioengineering and Biology , Mechanical Engineering , Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering ; it is one of the most multidisciplinary science and engineering fields. Fundamentally, all of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology is materials science. Because of this, in recent years materials science has been propelled to the forefront at many universities, sometimes controversially: many academics feel that the ''nano'' buzzword is bringing in large amounts of funding at the cost of detracting from the teaching of fundamental materials science by putting too much emphasis on devices and applications which may or may not see fruition as working products. HISTORY History is often defined by the materials used by advanced civilizations of an era; the ( Metallurgy ) and other materials that went into the construction of space vehicles was one of the enablers of space exploration. Until the 1960's (and in some cases until decades afterwards), many university departments which are now materials science departments were Metallurgy departments. Since then the field has broadened to include every class of materials including metallurgy, Ceramics , Polymers , electronic materials (such as Semiconductors and magnetic materials), and biological materials such as medical implants. Besides space exploration, materials science has been a driving factor in the developement of revolutionary technologies such as Plastics , Semiconductors , and Biomaterials . AIMS In materials science, rather than haphazardly looking for and discovering materials and exploiting their properties, one instead aims to understand materials fundamentally so that new materials can be invented and created with the desired properties. TECHNIQUES IN MATERIALS SCIENCE The basis of all materials science involves relating the desired Properties and relative '''performance''' of a material in a certain application to the '''structure''' of the atoms and phases in that material through '''characterization'''. The major determinants of the structure of the material and thus of its properties are its constituent elements and the way in which it has been processed into its final form. These, taken together and related through the laws of Thermodynamics , govern the material’s Microstructure , and thus its properties. An old adage in materials science says: "materials are like people; it is the defects that make them interesting". The manufacture of a perfect Crystal of a material is physically impossible. Instead workers in the materials science field manipulate the Defects in crystalline materials such as Precipitates , grain boundaries ( Hall-Petch Relationship ), interstitial atoms, vacancies or substitutional atoms in such a way as to create a material with the desired properties. Of course, not all materials have a regular crystal structure. Polymers display varying degrees of crystallinity. Glasses , some Ceramics , and many natural materials are Amorphous , not possessing any long-range order in their atomic arrangements. These materials are much harder to engineer than crystalline materials, and non-natural amorphous materials, save glass, are not often used in engineering. Polymers are a mixed case, and their study commonly combines elements of chemical and statistical thermodynamics to give thermodynamical, rather than mechanical descriptions of physical properties. MATERIALS IN INDUSTRY The widespread applications of materials science give rise to the titles 'materials science' and 'materials engineering'. 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 techniques ( Casting , Rolling , Welding , Ion Implantation , Crystal Growth , Thin-film Deposition , Sintering , Glassblowing , etc.), and analytical techniques (characterization techniques such as Electron Microscopy , X-ray Diffraction , Calorimetry , Nuclear Microscopy (HEFIB) , Rutherford Backscattering , Neutron Diffraction , etc.). The overlap between physics and materials science has led to the offshoot field of "materials physics," which is concerned with the physical properties of Materials . The approach is generally more macroscopic and applied than in Condensed Matter Physics . See the Important Publications In Materials Physics for more details on this field of study. CLASSES OF MATERIALS, BY BOND TYPES Materials science encompasses various classes of materials, each of which may constitute a separate field. Materials are sometimes classified by the type of bonding present between the atoms: # Ionic Crystals # Covalent Crystals # Metal s # Intermetallics # Semiconductors # Polymer s # Composite Material s SUB-FIELDS OF MATERIALS SCIENCE
Some practitioners often consider Rheology a sub-field of materials science, because it can cover any material that flows. However, modern rheology typically deals with non-Newtonian Fluid Dynamics , so it is often consider a sub-field of Continuum Mechanics . See also Granular Material . Topics that form the basis of materials science
A short list of non-academic materials facilities
SEE ALSO
|
|
|