Electronic Materials Science
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
TO ELECTRONIC
MATERIALS SCIENCE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Materials science can be thought of as a combination of the sciences of chemistry and
physics within a backdrop of engineering. Chemistry helps to define the synthetic pathways,
and provides the chemical makeup of a material, as well as its molecular structure.
Physics provides an understanding of the ordering (or lack thereof) of atoms and/
molecules and electronic structure, and physics also provides the basic principles that
enable a description of materials properties. The combined information provided by
physics and chemistry about a material leads to the determination and correlation of
materials properties with the process used to prepare the material, and with the materials
structure and morphology. The properties once determined and understood are
exploited through judicious engineering. In a sense engineering brings focus to the properties
that materials possess, ... read full excerpt from Electronic Materials Science ebook
