- Email: [email protected]
The benefits of list making
EDITORIAL
The benefits of list making Published by Elsevier Ltd. The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, OX5 1GB, UK Editorial Managing Editor Cordelia Sealy E-mail: [email protected] Editor Jonathan Wood E-mail: [email protected] Assistant Editor Katerina Busuttil E-mail: [email protected] Production Controller Colin Williams E-mail: [email protected] Advertising Advertisements Manager Kevin Partridge E-mail: [email protected] Advertisement Sales, USA/Asia Michael Venezia, E-mail: [email protected] Advertisement Sales, Europe David Kay E-mail: [email protected] Free circulation enquiries Materials Today, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Market Harborough LE16 9EF, UK Tel: +44 (0)1858 439 601 Fax: +44 (0)1858 434 958 E-mail: [email protected] Subscription orders & payments Price: 196 / US$219 / ¥26,100 Europe/ROW Tel: +31 20 485 3757 USA Tel: +1 212 633 3730 © Elsevier Ltd. 2008 Materials Today is owned and published by Elsevier Ltd. All material published in Materials Today is copyright Elsevier Ltd. This journal and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by Elsevier Ltd, and the following terms and conditions apply to their use: Photocopying: Single photocopies of single articles may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright laws. Permission of the Publisher and payment of a fee is required for all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying, copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit educational classroom use. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier Global Rights Department, P.O. Box 800, Oxford OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: [email protected]. You may also contact Global Rights directly through Elsevier’s homepage (http://www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Obtaining Permissions’. In the USA, users may clear permissions and make payments through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; phone: (+1) (978) 7508400, fax: (+1) (978) 7504744, and in the UK through the Copyright Licensing Agency Rapid Clearance Service (CLARCS), 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP, UK; phone: +44 (0)20 7631 5555; fax: +44 (0)20 7631 5500. Other countries may have a local reprographic rights agency for payments. Derivative Works: Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution. Permission of the Publisher is required for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. Electronic Storage or Usage: Permission of the Publisher is required to store or use electronically any material contained in this journal, including any article or part of an article. Except as outlined above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Publisher. Address permissions requests to: Elsevier Global Rights Department, at the mail, fax and e-mail addresses noted above. Notice: No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, inclusion in this publication does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such product or of the claims made of it by its manufacturer. Printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, Kent, UK ISSN 1369-7021 Journal number: 03069
Do you make personal lists of your top ten books, films, or CDs? What about materials science? Jonathan Wood | Editor, Materials Today | [email protected]
When you’re next in the pub with your research group, here’s my suggestion for a good discussion: what’s the greatest advance in materials science in the last 50 years? In the spirit of such arguments, we’ve assembled our own list of the top ten (page 40). There may be a few surprising choices and you might disagree with the order, but we think it is a balanced and thought-provoking selection. By all means take issue with us – I’d certainly like to hear your views and suggestions. While list making can be a fun and stimulating exercise, I think it is worth celebrating the progress achieved by materials science. It’s all too easy to keep heads down in lab work, paper writing, or grant applications. We all tend to buy into the overriding philosophy of materials science – that in mapping out structure-property-function relationships, we can understand and make use of a materials system – without ever examining where it has got us. Well, here’s a list that shows the vigor and dynamism of materials science, its truly multidisciplinary nature, and its reach across many areas of modern life. But the beginning of a New Year is also a time to look forward. What can we expect from materials science in the next 50 years? If the recent Materials Research Society Fall meeting in Boston is anything to go by, one answer is materials for energy. This was the one great focus of the conference. Faced with the predicted consequences of climate change, the need for great strides in clean energy is apparent. Thankfully, although support for this area largely dried up in the 1980s, this is now being reversed
with huge amounts of funding now being made available. For example, the recent America COMPETES Act makes provision for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) sitting outside of the US Department of Energy with funds of up to $300 million in 2008. The UK has also launched its own more modest strategy in energy materials under the auspices of Materials UK. Hopefully, researchers will rush to take on the materials challenges inherent in the options for clean energy. David Cahen of the Weizmann Institute in Israel, for one, is clear. “It’s not a mini-atom project that’s needed,” he told me. That had a clear path and known goals. “It’s more like the efforts to eradicate polio after the war.” Anything that might possibly have an effect received some level of support in the hope that some successful approaches would result. He believes basic fundamental science is needed because there are no great new ideas at present. So in the short term, engineers will need to rely on technical fixes to improve the efficiency of existing power plants, use waste heat, and optimize current renewable technologies. Beyond that, it’s all up for grabs. There’s nuclear fusion, artificial photosynthesis, clean coal technology, energy storage, and developing sustainable biofuels. In all areas of energy generation, significant materials advances will be required in the next 50 years.
Editorial Advisory Panel Gabriel Aeppli University College London, UK Caroline Baillie Queens University, Canada Zhenan Bao Stanford University, USA Franco Cacialli University College London, UK Martin Castell University of Oxford, UK Peter Goodhew University of Liverpool, UK
Ulrich Gösele Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Germany Hermann Grimmeiss Lunds Universitet, Sweden Alan Heeger University of California, Santa Barbara, USA Mark Johnson Naval Research Laboratory, USA Richard A. L. Jones University of Sheffield, UK
Neil McKeown Cardiff University, UK Tae Won Noh Seoul National University, Korea Stephen Pearton University of Florida, USA Marshall Stoneham FRS University College London, UK Helena Van Swygenhoven Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland Richard Vaia Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
George Whitesides Harvard University, USA Jackie Yi-Ru Ying Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore
JAN-FEB 2008 | VOLUME 11 | NUMBER 1-2
1
The benefits of list making Published by Elsevier Ltd. The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, OX5 1GB, UK Editorial Managing Editor Cordelia Sealy E-mail: [email protected] Editor Jonathan Wood E-mail: [email protected] Assistant Editor Katerina Busuttil E-mail: [email protected] Production Controller Colin Williams E-mail: [email protected] Advertising Advertisements Manager Kevin Partridge E-mail: [email protected] Advertisement Sales, USA/Asia Michael Venezia, E-mail: [email protected] Advertisement Sales, Europe David Kay E-mail: [email protected] Free circulation enquiries Materials Today, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Market Harborough LE16 9EF, UK Tel: +44 (0)1858 439 601 Fax: +44 (0)1858 434 958 E-mail: [email protected] Subscription orders & payments Price: 196 / US$219 / ¥26,100 Europe/ROW Tel: +31 20 485 3757 USA Tel: +1 212 633 3730 © Elsevier Ltd. 2008 Materials Today is owned and published by Elsevier Ltd. All material published in Materials Today is copyright Elsevier Ltd. This journal and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by Elsevier Ltd, and the following terms and conditions apply to their use: Photocopying: Single photocopies of single articles may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright laws. Permission of the Publisher and payment of a fee is required for all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying, copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit educational classroom use. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier Global Rights Department, P.O. Box 800, Oxford OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: [email protected]. You may also contact Global Rights directly through Elsevier’s homepage (http://www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Obtaining Permissions’. In the USA, users may clear permissions and make payments through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; phone: (+1) (978) 7508400, fax: (+1) (978) 7504744, and in the UK through the Copyright Licensing Agency Rapid Clearance Service (CLARCS), 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP, UK; phone: +44 (0)20 7631 5555; fax: +44 (0)20 7631 5500. Other countries may have a local reprographic rights agency for payments. Derivative Works: Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution. Permission of the Publisher is required for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. Electronic Storage or Usage: Permission of the Publisher is required to store or use electronically any material contained in this journal, including any article or part of an article. Except as outlined above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Publisher. Address permissions requests to: Elsevier Global Rights Department, at the mail, fax and e-mail addresses noted above. Notice: No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, inclusion in this publication does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such product or of the claims made of it by its manufacturer. Printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, Kent, UK ISSN 1369-7021 Journal number: 03069
Do you make personal lists of your top ten books, films, or CDs? What about materials science? Jonathan Wood | Editor, Materials Today | [email protected]
When you’re next in the pub with your research group, here’s my suggestion for a good discussion: what’s the greatest advance in materials science in the last 50 years? In the spirit of such arguments, we’ve assembled our own list of the top ten (page 40). There may be a few surprising choices and you might disagree with the order, but we think it is a balanced and thought-provoking selection. By all means take issue with us – I’d certainly like to hear your views and suggestions. While list making can be a fun and stimulating exercise, I think it is worth celebrating the progress achieved by materials science. It’s all too easy to keep heads down in lab work, paper writing, or grant applications. We all tend to buy into the overriding philosophy of materials science – that in mapping out structure-property-function relationships, we can understand and make use of a materials system – without ever examining where it has got us. Well, here’s a list that shows the vigor and dynamism of materials science, its truly multidisciplinary nature, and its reach across many areas of modern life. But the beginning of a New Year is also a time to look forward. What can we expect from materials science in the next 50 years? If the recent Materials Research Society Fall meeting in Boston is anything to go by, one answer is materials for energy. This was the one great focus of the conference. Faced with the predicted consequences of climate change, the need for great strides in clean energy is apparent. Thankfully, although support for this area largely dried up in the 1980s, this is now being reversed
with huge amounts of funding now being made available. For example, the recent America COMPETES Act makes provision for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) sitting outside of the US Department of Energy with funds of up to $300 million in 2008. The UK has also launched its own more modest strategy in energy materials under the auspices of Materials UK. Hopefully, researchers will rush to take on the materials challenges inherent in the options for clean energy. David Cahen of the Weizmann Institute in Israel, for one, is clear. “It’s not a mini-atom project that’s needed,” he told me. That had a clear path and known goals. “It’s more like the efforts to eradicate polio after the war.” Anything that might possibly have an effect received some level of support in the hope that some successful approaches would result. He believes basic fundamental science is needed because there are no great new ideas at present. So in the short term, engineers will need to rely on technical fixes to improve the efficiency of existing power plants, use waste heat, and optimize current renewable technologies. Beyond that, it’s all up for grabs. There’s nuclear fusion, artificial photosynthesis, clean coal technology, energy storage, and developing sustainable biofuels. In all areas of energy generation, significant materials advances will be required in the next 50 years.
Editorial Advisory Panel Gabriel Aeppli University College London, UK Caroline Baillie Queens University, Canada Zhenan Bao Stanford University, USA Franco Cacialli University College London, UK Martin Castell University of Oxford, UK Peter Goodhew University of Liverpool, UK
Ulrich Gösele Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Germany Hermann Grimmeiss Lunds Universitet, Sweden Alan Heeger University of California, Santa Barbara, USA Mark Johnson Naval Research Laboratory, USA Richard A. L. Jones University of Sheffield, UK
Neil McKeown Cardiff University, UK Tae Won Noh Seoul National University, Korea Stephen Pearton University of Florida, USA Marshall Stoneham FRS University College London, UK Helena Van Swygenhoven Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland Richard Vaia Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
George Whitesides Harvard University, USA Jackie Yi-Ru Ying Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore
JAN-FEB 2008 | VOLUME 11 | NUMBER 1-2
1