Designing substances for a property you specify in advance.
10 topics · 10 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
A Synthesis Born of Necessity Unlocks a Nano-World of Wonders
Moungi G. Bawendi · 2023
Describes the hot-injection method for growing semiconductor nanocrystals of controlled, uniform size, whose colour depends on size alone through…
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Semiconducting and Metallic Polymers: The Fourth Generation of Polymeric Materials
Alan J. Heeger · 2000
Shows that doping a conjugated polymer creates mobile charge carriers along its backbone, turning an ordinary organic plastic into an electrical…
+2 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
The Atomic Arrangement in Glass
William H. Zachariasen · 1932
Proposes that glass is a continuous random network built from the same structural units as the corresponding crystal, rather than a crystal shattered…
+5 more at this level
10 works
Moungi G. Bawendi
Describes the hot-injection method for growing semiconductor nanocrystals of controlled, uniform size, whose colour depends on size alone through quantum confinement.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Alan J. Heeger
Shows that doping a conjugated polymer creates mobile charge carriers along its backbone, turning an ordinary organic plastic into an electrical conductor.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Jeffrey Grossman (MIT OpenCourseWare)
Explains material properties from electronic structure and bonding upward, so that why a metal conducts and a ceramic shatters follows from the same account rather than from separate rules.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Darrel R. Tenney, John G. Davis Jr., Norman J. Johnston, R. Byron Pipes & Jack F. McGuire
Traces how fibre-reinforced composites moved from secondary aircraft parts to primary load-bearing structure, arguing the pace was set by validating durability and damage tolerance rather than by the materials themselves.
link checked 17 Sept 2026William H. Zachariasen
Proposes that glass is a continuous random network built from the same structural units as the corresponding crystal, rather than a crystal shattered into disordered grains.
link checked 17 Sept 2026D. M. Chapin, C. S. Fuller & G. L. Pearson
Reports the first silicon p-n junction efficient enough to power a real device from sunlight, launching silicon as the working material of practical photovoltaics.
Harold W. Kroto
Recounts how simulating the carbon chemistry of red giant stars led to discovering a stable, spontaneously forming 60-carbon cage structure in the laboratory.
link checked 17 Sept 2026H. Li et al.
Builds a rigid, permanently porous crystal from metal-oxide clusters linked by rigid organic struts, establishing the reticular design strategy behind metal-organic frameworks.
link checked 17 Sept 2026George M. Whitesides & Bartosz A. Grzybowski
Argues that self-assembly — components spontaneously organising into ordered structures — operates by the same principles from molecules to millimetre-scale objects.
link checked 17 Sept 2026John B. Goodenough
Identifies layered transition-metal oxides as cathode materials able to reversibly host lithium ions, the design principle behind the rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
link checked 17 Sept 2026