Issues

Solutions to technologically important problems in materials science—such as pattern formation during solidification—are within reach. Yet, while US researchers may have the tools to find solutions, their opportunities for doing so in the US are slipping rapidly.

A new closs of materials that can be designed and fabricated with prescribed electronic and photonic properties has opened up a frontier field in semiconductor research.

Structures made by the orderly deposition of alternating thin films of two or more metals, at least one of which is magnetic, exhibit new physical effects and have great technological potential.

Stacking faults, ionic vacancies, columnar defects, grain boundaries and other crystal defects play crucial roles in determining the superconducting properties of high‐T_c layered cuprates. Such defects can be exploited to optimize superconductivity.

Creators of high-performance synthetic composites hope to emulate nature by designing materials that are optimized for their ultimate functions on every scale from the molecular to the macroscopic.