Published by Australian Academy of Science
It’s an advanced material world Box 1 | What does a material scientist do?

Materials scientists study how things are put together – including their atomic structure, chemical and physical properties – and use this information to create new materials and products. They look at what they require from materials and then alter them to make them better suited to their job.

New materials used to be made on a ‘hit and miss’ basis. It was a bit like a chef experimenting with new spices and cooking techniques without understanding how the ingredients combined to give the final result.

With a deeper understanding of structure and advances in technology, materials scientists have moved far beyond this crude investigation and work on a much more subtle level.

Scientists use computers to improve the speed and accuracy of the experimental process and to reduce the expense involved in finding new materials. In contrast to traditional ‘one-at-a-time’ testing of a material’s properties, computer models allow researchers to manipulate and visualise information and even test ideas in a ‘virtual’ world. They can quickly evaluate how variables such as length of exposure, temperature and composition influence a material’s performance for a specified task. They can then make the material and test it in the ‘real world’.

If you made a list of all the known materials on A4 paper, the pile of pages would be more than half a metre tall. And more are being added to this list every day as scientists modify and develop new materials.

Related sites

• Materials science and engineering: The field (Sloan Career Cornerstone Centre, USA)

• Computational quantum chemistry (Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University)

Other boxes

Box 2. Designing new materials

Box 3. Advanced materials in the human body