| Starting in the 1960s the field of materials science has undergone significant changes, from a field derived largely from well-established disciplines of metallurgy and ceramics to a field that includes microelectronics, polymers, biomaterials, and nanotechnology. The stringent materials requirements, such as extreme purity, perfect crystallinity and defectfree materials for the microelectronics revolution in the 1960s, were the prime movers. Major developments in other technologically significant fields, such as polymers, optics, high-strength materials that can withstand hostile environments for space and atmospheric flight, prosthetics and dental materials, and superconductivity, have along with microelectronics changed materials science from a primarily metallurgical field to a broad discipline that includes ever-growing numbers of classes of materials and subdisciplines. This book is a textbook that ambitiously endeavors to present the fundamentals of the modern broad field of materials science, electronics materials science, and to do so as a first course in materials science aimed at graduate students who have not had a previous introductory course in materials science. The book’s contents derive from course notes that I have used in teaching this first course for more than 20 years at UNC.
The initial challenge in teaching a one semester first course in this broad discipline of electronics materials science is the selection of topics that provide sufficient fundamentals to facilitate further advanced study, either formally with advanced courses or via self study during the course of performing advanced degree research. It is the main intent of this book to provide fundamental intellectual “tools” for electronic materials science that can be developed through further study and research. The book is specifically directed to materials scientists who will focus on electronics and optical materials science, although with an emphasis on fundamentals, the material selected has benefited polymer and biomaterials scientists as well, enabling a wide variety of materials science, chemistry, and physics students to pursue diverse fields and qualify for a variety of advanced courses. With such a broad intent virtually all of materials science would be relevant, since modern electronics materials include many diverse materials, morphologies, and structures. However, there was a self-limiting mechanism, namely it all had to fit into one semester. Consequently fundamentals are stressed and descriptive material is limited. |