Let us start with a simple remark. It is said that Copernicus founded modern cosmology, Galileo and Newton modern physics, and Lavoisier chemistry. For various reasons scientific communities like to forge the statue of their founding hero, duly celebrated by the disciplinary communities. Every science, every subdiscipline has been given a founding father. But who is the founder of materials science? To my knowledge, there is no candidate for this prestigious position - and this is not for want of genius or for lack of ambition among materials scientists. So we are faced with a founderless science, a domain that stems from no single identifiable root. In particular, although the study of the strength of materials remains indispensable for all structural materials, the mechanics of solids was not the source of the modern discipline.Metallurgy is a more obvious source. In the 1960s the departments of metallurgy of a number of academic institutions were renamed "metallurgy and materials science" and a few years later materials science emerged as an autonomous entity.
This linguistic change is the outcome of an evolution within metallurgy starting in the 1910s, when William H. and William L. Bragg - father and son - opened up a window on the arrangement of atoms in crystalline structures thanks to x-ray diffraction [4] . An instrumental technique for visualizing structures was thus the prime mover. And we will observe that in the following decades imaging techniques have continued to play a leading role in the advancement of materials science and technology. The study of crystals and the determination of crystalline structures became a concern of physicists or rather "physical metallurgists" as they were named in the 1920s. And from this moment on, the future of metallurgy lay in their hands rather than in the hands of skilled metallurgists, or chemists. Whatever the importance of composition and chemical bonding for the study of alloys, chemists were marginalized. Investigating the microstructure became a priority because it provided an understanding of the mutual disposition of phases and of the properties of the alloys. As Robert W. Cahn emphasized, "Microstructure as a scientific category is the peculiar contribution of physical metallurgy to the study of solid state physics, and was later extended to materials science." [5] Physicists introduced the notions of crystal lattice, dislocation, and defect. Dislocations were directly observed in the 1950s with the transmission electron microscope. The connection between microstructure and mechanical properties was thus probed and the models and theories elaborated by physicists were put at work to design new materials.Once x-ray diffraction techniques had provided precise atomic pictures of solids, quantum mechanics provided the theoretical foundations for the description of solids. Quantum theory soon reinforced the domination of physicists while the solid state became an object of investigation in itself. More directly, solid-state physics contributed to the emergence of materials science, by its focus on "structure-sensitive properties". As pointed out by Spencer Weart in his contribution to the volume Out of the Crystal Maze, solid-state physicists discriminated between the properties depending on the idealized crystal pattern and the properties dependent on "accidents" of the inner arrangement or of the surface of the solid [6] . This focus on structure-sensitive properties in the study of crystals can be seen as the main pathway leading to materials science. In addition to this theoretical influx, thermodynamics and phase diagrams are another important tributary stemming from Josiah Willard Gibbs that merged into solid-state physics with Friedrich Seitz and David Turnbull.However, even if the study of the solid state was a first step towards the emergence of the generic concept of materials and if it provided the notions of microstructure and structure-sensitive properties, a solid is not a material. The relation between structure and properties is only one aspect of MSE: the notion of a material requires that structure and properties be coupled with functions or performance.
The generic concept of materials first appeared in the language of science policy makers where it was represented as a bottleneck for advances in space and military technologies. During World War II, the critical needs were still addressed in terms of one strategic material (synthetic rubber, or plutonium for instance). By contrast, in the 1950s, the US President Science Advisory Committee (PSCAS) singled out materials as a priority. The advent of Sputnik in 1957 brought heavy investments in space research, with long-range programs and no concern for payoff [7] . The idea that all materials were strategic emerged in the context of the Cold War as a major condition for responding to future emergencies [8] . The Department of Defense (DoD) decided to sponsor many investigations into materials for special applications in weapons and aerospace. Through its Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), the DoD developed contracts with a number of universities. In June 1961, a contract was signed with 5 universities (Harvard, MIT, Brown, Stanford, and Chicago) for a total of $13,375,000.
Dr Jack P. Ruina, the director of ARPA, emphasized the critical need for new materials and a better understanding of the fundamental processes underlying their performances. He mentioned four topics: magnetic and low-temperature research; semi-conductors and their applications to devices; electronic materials development and preparation (semi-conductor, superconductor, and semi metals); and solid-state structure studies using advanced techniques. Research in 1957 was categorized as follows:
It was indeed a very narrow definition of materials research.
The ARPA program had two important features.
In 1964, ARPA launched a "Coupling program" to gather specific industrial, governmental laboratories and university interdisciplinary laboratories. The aim was to hasten the transfer from laboratory research to industrial production but the program was still basically orientated towards defense needs. [11]
Practically the ARPA program resulted in the construction of new buildings built around a central unit of heavy equipment for processing and testing materials. [12] Instrumentation would act as a driving force to prompt meetings and collaborations, to develop a common culture or what one actor called a spiritual entity. The rhetoric surrounding the creation of IDLs emphasized flexibility and partnership between departments.
After 10 years of operation, the program seemed a full success at least in quantitative terms: there was a dramatic increase in publications and doctoral and master degrees in materials related subjects [13] . However it is difficult to evaluate the success of this program since a number of achievements in materials technologies like the transistor, and photocells, soft magnetic materials preceded it. Rather than initiating creativity the ARPA program rode a wave, although in restropect, with the experience of the next decade, it appears to have encouraged imaginative science. Moreover, the optimistic annual reports sent by the IDLs to ARPA underplayed the difficulties of fitting the flexible, non-hierarchical interdepartmental centers into the academic structure. In addition to the usual struggles for power between academics, a source of difficulty was that most of the research projects were conducted outside the buildings created by the ARPA program. Frictions sometimes occurred between the research centers and the departments. More importantly, interdisciplinary research often meant that the physics community had the leadership of the scientific side and the metallurgists on the engineering side.
This program, however, created the research field of Materials Science and Engineering, at this stage mainly an American science. Although in Europe, a number of Materials Science Centers grew out of former metallurgy departments, materials did not become a political concern until the1970s. [14] This does not mean that no advanced materials research existed outside the US. [15] In France, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, as well as Canada, there were many scattered pockets of research on subjects related to materials but no identifiable field of materials science, no central project pushed by the government.
To sum up this first period, materials science as a research field first materialized in a number of buildings with research facilities. Instrumentation played a crucial role in this early stage. Although a strong impetus towards interdisciplinarity existed in a number of places such as MIT, the discipline of MSE emerged out of a governmental decree with generous funding. It was nurtured by academics finding in materials science a good opportunity to pursue their own research interests in crystalline structures. Therefore materials science, at this stage, was essentially oriented towards fundamental science. Industrial companies were expected to take over and jump onto the bandwagon but the 1964 coupling program failed.
Before 1970, MSE was a fairly coherent field of research because it was largely dominated by physics, metallurgy and crystallography. Although a number of chemists were involved in the interdisciplinary projects, polymer science was not properly integrated into the corpus of MSE and the 1975 report, Materials and Man's Needs, expressed doubts about the feasibility of doing so. [16] The 1976 issue of the journal Materials Science and Engineering reviewing the field for the 10th anniversary of the journal's publication provides a good overview: nearly 80% of the contributions dealt with metals and alloys most of which focussed on phase transformation. Only two essays dealt with polymers, one dealt with ceramics and one touched on oxide glasses.
1970-1990: Composites and mixed-disciplinarity
[4] Smith, Cyril Stanley, "The development of ideas on the structure of metals", in Marshall Clagett (ed.), Critical Problems in the History of Science (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), pp. 467-498; id. "Four Outstanding Researches in Metallurgical History", American Society for Testing and Materials (1963). 1-35, on p. 11-14 ; R.W. Cahn, "Solid State Physics and Metallurgy", in D.L. Weaire, C.G. Windsor (eds), Solid State Science. Past, Present, Predicted (Bristol : Adam Hillger, 1987), pp. 79-108.
[5] R.W. Cahn, "Solid State Physics and Metallurgy", op. cit., p. 85
[6] Spencer R. Weart, "The Solid Community", in Hoddeson L, Braun E., Teichman J., Weart S. (eds.), Out of the Crystal Maze. Chapters from the History of Solid State Physics (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 617-666, on p. 623.
[7] On the attitude of the federal government toward fundamental research in the 1950s, see Daniel Kevles, The Physicists, (New York, Random House, 1979); Stuart W Leslie, The Cold War and American Science (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993).
[8] The background paper prepared by the staff of the President's Science Advisory Committee dated March, 18, 1958, summarized the situation in 4 points: i) Rockets, nuclear reactors, space flight have created the need for materials which are not currently available; ii) During the last decade advances in solid state science have been made which allow a technology of new materials; iii) since such materials are very urgent for federal agencies but of little significance in the civilian economy, the Federal Government has to play the leading role; iv) university can offer research and a skilled manpower if adequately supported. See Peter A Psaras, H. Dale Langford (eds) Advancing Materials Science (Washington DC, National Academy of Science, 1987). p. 23-24.
[9] MIT contractors described this political decision as a willingness to "encourage the natural growth of universities".
[10] See table 1 in Psaras and Dale, Advancing Materials Research, op.cit. p.36.
[11] This program launched by Robert L. Sproull concerned such areas as polymer composites, stress corrosion cracking and explosives (see Martin Stickley "ARPA Program in the 1970s", in MIT Office of the President Records 1943-1989, AC 12, Box 81)
[12] Three IDLs opened in 1960 - Cornell, Pennsylvania, Northwestern; eight were initiated in 1961 - Brown, Chicago, Harvard, Maryland (only terminated in 1977), MIT, North Carolina (only terminated in 1978), Purdue, Stanford. In 1962 an IDL funded by AEC was created in Illinois (Urbana) see Lyle H. Schwartz, "Materials Research Laboratories: Reviewing the First Twenty-Five Years", in Peter A Psaras, H. Dale Langford (eds) Advancing Materials Science op.cit. pp. 35-44.
[13] In the group of 12 universities with ARPA/IDL support, the number of Ph.D.'s granted in materials subject went from 100 in 1960 to 360 in 1967. See Lyle H. Schwartz, "Materials Research Laboratories: Reviewing the First Twenty-Five Years", Peter A Psaras, H. Dale Langford (eds) Advancing Materials Science op.cit.
[14] In the UK, a chair of Materials Science was created at Sussex University as early as 1965 held by Robert W. Cahn, a physical metallurgist, who founded the first Journal of Materials Science in 1966. At Imperial College, the Metallurgy department offered an interdepartmental course of materials, and at Sheffield a faculty of materials technology came into being. The newer postwar universities and polytechnics transformed into technological universities offered a favorable ground for starting materials programs but the establishment of research institutes on a large scale was still well behind the USA. In France, the Ecole nationale supérieure des Mines created a Centre des matériaux in 1962. After 1968, the Délégation générale à la recherche scientifique et technique, a governmental office, rechristened the Commission Métallurgie as Commission Matériaux and encouraged the creation of graduate curricula in Materials Science in a dozen of universities.
[15] In a conference on Advances in Materials Research in the NATO Nations Organization, European scientists gave 15 papers and US scientists gave nine. A number of European scientists gave remarkable surveys of fields such as dislocation theory (by A. Seeger, Germany) or semiconductors (by Pierre Aigrain, France) or magnetic materials (by Louis Néel, France). The British report emphasised that "materials are a secondary interest of many people but the primary interest of few". Advances in Materials Research in the NATO Nations Organization published by the Advisory Group for Aeronautical Research and Development North Atlantic Treatise Organization (Oxford, London, NY: Pergamon Press, 1963).
[16] National Academy of Science (COSMAT), Materials and Man's needs, (page 7-211)
|
|
|
|