What is Materials Science?

Materials Science is the study of the characteristics and uses of various materials, such as metals, ceramics, and plastics (polymers), that are employed in science and technology. Materials science, by nature, is interdisciplinary, employing and integrating concepts and techniques from many disciplines, including chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics.

A MATERIALS SCIENCE TIMELINE

1500s

1556 Georgius Agricola's De re metallica, a compendium of 16th century mining, metallurgical, and general materials production, is published.

1600s

1664 Cartesian corpuscular philosophy recognizes material properties as emerging from a multilevel structure.

1665 Robert Hooke publishes Micrographia, which reveals levels of material microstructure never before seen.

1700s

1722 René de Réaumur publishes the first technical treatise on iron.

1782 Josiah Wedgwood develops an early form of process control with his invention of the pyrometer for measuring furnace temperatures.

1800s

1808 John Dalton publishes his New System of Chemical Philosophy, which establishes atomic theory.

1824 Joseph Aspdin invents portland cement, which remains one of the most used materials in the world.

1839 Charles Goodyear accidentally discovers vulcanization, which ultimately renders raw rubber latex into a widely useful material.

1856 Henry Bessemer patents a process for large-scale steel production.

1860s Henry Sorby applies light microscopy to the study of the microstructure of metals and rocks.

1869 John Hyatt successfully commercializes celluloid, an artificial plastic material.

1869 and 1870 Dmitri Mendeleev and Julius Lothar Meyer publish versions of what will become known as the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements.

1886 Charles Hall and Paul Héroult independently discover cost- effective methods for producing aluminum metal from ore.

1893 Floris Osmond discovers martensitic transformation.

1900s

1900 Max Planck formulates the idea of quanta, thereby setting the stage for the development of quantum mechanics.

1906 Alfred Wilm discovers age hardening in aluminum alloy, which is later used for making dirigibles and other aircraft.

1909 Leo Baekeland patents Bakelite, the first entirely synthetic plastic, and commercializes it widely.

1911 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity in mercury chilled to temperatures near absolute zero.

1911-12 The father-son team of William Henry and William Lawrence Bragg, along with Max von Laue, develops the basis of x-ray crystallography, one of the most important analytic techniques for studying material structure.

1921 A. A. Griffith postulates role of defects in fracture strength.

Late 1920s Hermann Staudinger argues that polymers are made of small molecules that link to form chains.

1934 Wallace Hume Carothers invents nylon.

1940s The wartime practice of organizing multidisciplinary research collaborations to achieve technological goals becomes a model for the subsequent organization of a field that later becomes known as materials science and engineering.

1947 John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain invent the transistor.

1950s to 1960s Much of the theoretical foundation behind the formation and evolution of material microstructure is developed. Among them is the Hall-Petch relation for grain refinement strengthening and the theory of diffusion of solids.

1953 Karl Ziegler develops catalysts that make it easier and cheaper to polymerize ethylene into stronger, more capable polymers.

1955 A team of scientists at General Electric combine high temperatures and enormous pressures to create synthetic diamond.

1957 John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Schrieffer provide theoretical basis for superconductivity, discovered in 1911.

1959 The U.S. government funds the first IDLs, or interdisciplinary laboratories, which mark a beginning of the modern academic model of materials science and engineering. J. W. Cahn and J. F. Hilliard develop theory of microstructural evolution in diffuse-interface systems.

1970 Researchers at Corning develop optical fibers transparent enough to make fiber optic communication practical.

1974 A study by an NAS committee, COSMAT, defines field of materials science and engineering, creating a community sensibility.

1980 Gerd Binnig (right) and Heinrich Rohrer (left) invent scanning tunneling microscopy, which has led to a family of imaging tools often capable of molecular- and atomic-scale resolution.

1985 First university "materials by design" initiatives attempt computational materials design.

1986 K. Alex Müller and J. Georg Bednorz discover high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic materials.

1990s The field of materials science and engineering begins shifting into a more systems-based approach to materials innovation and toward materials design in which researchers can predict new materials they would like to have rather than having to discover them.

 

Materials Science Timeline Source:
Gregory B. Olson is Wilson-Cook Professor of Engineering Design in the department of materials science and engineering and director of the Materials Technology Laboratory atNorthwestern University.