Advanced Materials Research Trends

Book excerpt: Advanced materials can be defined in numerous ways; the broadest definition is to refer to all materials that represent advances over the traditional materials that have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years. From this perspective advanced materials refer to all new materials and modifications to existing materials to obtain superior performance in one or more characteristics that are critical for the application under consideration. A more insightful and focused approach to advanced materials is to consider materials that are early in their product and/or technology lifecycle. In other words, there is significant room for growth in terms of the improvement of the performance characteristics (technology lifecycle) and their product lifecycle. The book presents new and important research in the field.