NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the panel responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
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The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-96ER45613, the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-9632837, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology under Grant No. 50SBNB5C8819. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.
Front Cover: A scanning tunneling microscope image that shows the wave nature of electrons confined in a “quantum corral” of 48 individually positioned atoms. See page 2. (Courtesy of IBM Research.)
Copyright 1997 by the National Academy of Sciences . All rights reserved.
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COMMITTEE ON CONDENSED-MATTER AND MATERIALS PHYSICS
VENKATESH NARAYANAMURTI,
University of California, Santa Barbara,
Chair
JAMES B. ROBERTO,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
Vice Chair
GABRIEL AEPPLI,
NEC Research Institute
ARTHUR BIENENSTOCK,
Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory
J. MURRAY GIBSON,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
STEVEN GIRVIN,
Indiana University
MARK KETCHEN,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
EDWARD KRAMER,
University of California, Santa Barbara
JAMES S. LANGER,
University of California, Santa Barbara
CHERRY A. MURRAY,
Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories
V. ADRIAN PARSEGIAN,
National Institutes of Health
PAUL S. PEERCY,
SEMI/SEMATECH
JULIA M. PHILLIPS,
Sandia National Laboratories
ROBERT C. RICHARDSON,
Cornell University
FRANS SPAEPEN,
Harvard University
KATEPALLI R. SREENIVASAN,
Yale University
DANIEL F. MORGAN,
Program Officer
SOLID STATE SCIENCES COMMITTEE
THOMAS P. RUSSELL,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
Chair
MYRIAM P. SARACHIK,
City College of New York,
Vice Chair
PAUL A. FLEURY,
University of New Mexico,
Past Chair
GABRIEL AEPPLI,
NEC Research Institute
FRANK S. BATES,
University of Minnesota
JOHN C. BRAVMAN,
Stanford University
DANIEL S. CHEMLA,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
MARC A. KASTNER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
GERALD MAHAN,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
DAVID MONCTON,
Argonne National Laboratory
CHERRY A. MURRAY,
Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories
S. THOMAS PICRAUX,
Sandia National Laboratories
JAMES B. ROBERTO,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
JOHN J. RUSH,
National Institute of Standards and Technology
DALE W. SCHAEFER,
University of Cincinnati
DO Y. YOON,
IBM Almaden Research Center
DANIEL F. MORGAN,
Program Officer
BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
ROBERT C. DYNES,
University of California, San Diego,
Chair
ROBERT C. RICHARDSON,
Cornell University,
Vice Chair
IRA BERNSTEIN,
Yale University
STEVEN CHU,
Stanford University
VAL FITCH,
Princeton University
IVAR GIAEVER,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
JOHN P. HUCHRA,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
ANTHONY C.S. READHEAD,
California Institute of Technology
R.G. HAMISH ROBERTSON,
University of Washington
KATHLEEN C. TAYLOR,
GM Research and Development Center
J. ANTHONY TYSON,
Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories
GEORGE WHITESIDES,
Harvard University
DAVID WILKINSON,
Princeton University
DONALD C. SHAPERO,
Director
ROBERT L. RIEMER,
Associate Director
DANIEL F. MORGAN,
Program Officer
NATASHA CASEY,
Senior Administrative Associate
GRACE WANG,
Project Assistant
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
ROBERT J. HERMANN,
United Technologies Corporation,
Co-chair
W. CARL LINEBERGER,
University of Colorado,
Co-chair
PETER M. BANKS,
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
WILLIAM BROWDER,
Princeton University
LAWRENCE D. BROWN,
University of Pennsylvania
RONALD G. DOUGLAS,
Texas A&M University
JOHN E. ESTES,
University of California, Santa Barbara
MARTHA P. HAYNES,
Cornell University
L. LOUIS HEGEDUS,
Elf Atochem North America, Inc.
JOHN E. HOPCROFT,
Cornell University
CAROL M. JANTZEN,
Westinghouse Savannah River Company
PAUL G. KAMINSKI,
Technovation, Inc.
KENNETH H. KELLER,
University of Minnesota
KENNETH I. KELLERMANN,
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
MARGARET G. KIVELSON,
University of California, Los Angeles
DANIEL KLEPPNER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOHN KREICK,
Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company
MARSHA I. LESTER,
University of Pennsylvania
NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS,
Brookhaven National Laboratory
CHANG-LIN TIEN,
University of California, Berkeley
NORMAN METZGER,
Executive Director
Preface
In the spring of 1996, the National Research Council's Board on Physics and Astronomy established the Committee on Condensed-Matter and Materials Physics to prepare a scholarly assessment of the field as part of a new decadal physics survey. The work of the committee began with a two-day workshop in Washington in June 1996. This workshop brought together some 60 leading practitioners in the field as well as key policymakers from government, industry, and universities. Since then, the committee has met several times to formulate its report, which is to be completed by June 1998.
This short report, The Physics of Materials: How Science Improves Our Lives, is an early output of the ongoing study, intended for a broad audience. Based largely on the presentations at the June 1996 workshop, it highlights some of the fundamental science at the forefront of research in the field and demonstrates, through illustrative examples, the field's impact on our everyday lives.
Even though the highlights presented are primarily physics based, the committee would like to emphasize the importance of links with other fields of science and engineering and the inherent interdisciplinary nature and unity of materials research. Important examples of these multidisciplinary links include fullerenes (physics and chemistry), macromolecules (physics and biology), structural alloys (physics and materials engineering), and silicon technology (physics and electrical engineering).
The committee would like to express its gratitude for the interactions it has had with numerous scientists and policy-makers. As it continues its deliberations over the next several months, the committee looks forward to receiving further input from the community. 
