Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 9 December 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5754, pp. 1623 - 1624
DOI: 10.1126/science.1121019
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

MATERIALS SCIENCE:
Metallurgy in the Age of Silicon

D. C. Chrzan

Since the Bronze Age, humans have known how to make stronger materials by mixing one metal with another. But some alloys have the puzzling property of being softer than the starting metals. In his Perspective, Chrzan discusses results reported in the same issue by Trinkle and Woodward in which solute-induced softening is studied computationally in molybdenum-rhenium and molybdenum-platinum alloys. The calculations indicate how the solutes influence the movement of dislocations in the alloy and thus its plasticity. Beyond solving one of the longstanding riddles of metallurgy, the results also show that computational materials science is maturing into a powerful tool for research.

The author is in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, and the Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. E-mail: dcchrzan{at}berkeley.edu

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)