Combinatorial Materials Science: What's New Since Edison?€¦ · at Thomas Edison, despite his enormous success). In part, the academic reaction finds its foundation in the healthy

The advent of computers and automationequipment has dramatically accelerated theadvance of both technology and science.Indeed, the ability to accomplish tasks amillion, a billion, or even more times faster(and often, cheaper and better) is a drivingforce for such progress, for it greatly lever-ages the efforts of researchers and institu-tions across many disciplines. This processis exemplified in the unprecedented successof combinatorial and high-throughputapproaches in the pharmaceutical andbiotechnology industries. In these fields,automation of the fabrication of multivariatespecimen arrays, screening and analysistechniques, and informatics has plainlyhastened the development of importantnew drugs, drug variants, and genetic

therapies, which accounts in part for thebiotechnical revolution now in progress.

Given this triumph, it is a wonder thatcombinatorial techniques have not beenmore widely adopted in other scientificfields, particularly fundamental materialsresearch, where, considering the case offormulations alone, the development anduse of combinatorial techniques is a rea-sonable, if not obvious, next step. To besure, the promise of “faster, cheaper, andbetter” materials discovery has capturedthe attention of many in the materials andchemical industries in the face of an increas-ingly competitive market. The response ofthe academic community, however, seemsless enthusiastic. In part this reluctancehas a philosophical basis.

Some have perceived combinatorial sci-ence as “merely” an engineering shortcut,a route to invention that circumvents trueunderstanding (a criticism often leveledat Thomas Edison, despite his enormoussuccess). In part, the academic reaction findsits foundation in the healthy skepticismwith which scientists view all emergingfields, especially those, like combinatorialmethods, that seem so promising. Accord-ingly, in this issue of MRS Bulletin, westrive to outline the current state of and re-cent advances in combinatorial and high-throughput methods applied to materialsscience through a collection of articleswritten by some leading researchers in thefield. We hope that these articles will stimu-late discussion regarding the significanceof combinatorial techniques and their im-pact on the materials sciences in the 21stcentury. In addition, we trust that theywill demonstrate how powerful combina-torial materials science methods havealready become. As a means of further in-troducing this topic, a brief backgroundon combinatorial materials science researchis in order.

The ability to map out structure–property relationships is central to thegoal of materials science. As materialsscientists progress in this endeavor, con-sidering more and more complex systems,the possibility of important discoveriesincreases, but so does the difficulty of thetask. Phillips1 estimated that at the endof the 1980s there were approximately24,000 known inorganic phases. Of these,16,000 were simple binary systems, andonly 8000 were the more complex ternaryphases. If 60 elements from the periodictable are considered, these could be com-bined to form roughly 34,000 ternary sys-tems. Given that each of these systemscould exhibit several phases (each withstoichiometry-dependent structure andproperties), and that each system includesassociated quaternary oxides and nitrides,it becomes increasingly clear that thenumber of understood complex systems isminuscule, compared with the total (andwe have not even considered organic/polymeric systems!). To delineate thestructure–property–processing relation-ships of each of these potentially usefulsystems would involve literally billions ofexperiments, a daunting task with “one-at-a-time” analysis and preparation tech-niques. And, while theoretical materialsscience has made great advances, it is ex-pected (at least for the foreseeable future)that experimental exploration must bearmost of this burden. It seems obvious thatthis challenge will not be met if we rely ontraditional materials science techniquesalone.

MRS BULLETIN/APRIL 2002 295

CombinatorialMaterials Science:What’s NewSince Edison?Eric J. Amis, Xiao-Dong Xiang, and

Ji-Cheng Zhao, Guest Editors

AbstractCombinatorial methods are high-efficiency methods to create large composition

“libraries” of materials, for example, continuous composition variations, and test thosecompositions systematically in parallel for specific properties of interest, in contrast to thetime-consuming one-composition-at-a-time approach.These methods have captured theattention of the materials industry with the promise of providing new discoveries “faster,better, and cheaper.” However, in the academic community, combinatorial methods oftenmeet with less enthusiasm, perhaps due to the perception of combinatorial methodologyas an Edisonian approach to science.The facts are quite to the contrary. In addition toimpressive successes arising from the application of combinatorial methods to materialsdiscovery, results coming out of systematic high-throughput investigations of complexmaterials phenomena (which would be too time-consuming or expensive to undertake)provide data leading to improvement in theories and models of materials chemistryand physics. Indeed, combinatorial methods provide a new paradigm for advancinga central scientific goal—the fundamental understanding of structure–propertyrelationships of materials behavior.

Keywords: alloys, biomedical materials, ceramics, combinatorial methods, diffusion,electron microprobe, electronic materials, electronic properties, evanescent microwaveprobe, mechanical properties, nanoindentation, optical materials, phase equilibria,photoluminescence, polymers, structural materials, thin films.

www.mrs.org/publications/bulletin

We should not underestimate the poten-tial impact of combinatorial approacheson the fundamental understanding of ma-terials physics and chemistry. The system-atic mapping of complex systems can helpreveal phenomena that may enrich andchallenge our understanding of materialsphysics and behavior. The results comingout of combinatorial mapping (whichwould be too time-consuming or expen-sive to generate by conventional methods)can test and improve theoretical modelsand hypotheses. In the past, serendipitousobservations made significant contribu-tions to materials design and materialsscience. At the very least, combinatorialapproaches can make such observationsregular occurrences.

Although the recent resurgence of inter-est in combinatorial materials science maybe rooted in a series of works publishedby Berkeley researchers in the last decade,2,3

groundbreaking experiments in the fieldwere first published in the 1960s. Indeed,many of the principles developed in thisperiod (e.g., the use of gradient tech-niques) are being utilized and advancedtoday across a broad range of materialsscience. Take, for example, the 1965 paperof Kennedy et al.,4 which described aternary-alloy phase “library” producedusing electron-beam coevaporation tech-niques and analyzed with electron dif-fraction. These authors succeeded indemonstrating a qualitative agreementbetween their phase diagram, producedby combinatorial techniques, and that de-termined by conventional methods. Al-though significant discrepancies remained,these were mainly due to the limitations oftheir deposition and analysis equipment.In 1967, Miller and Shirn5 analyzed theAu-SiO2 system using a cosputteringtechnique. By carefully aligning Au andSiO2 targets, a film exhibiting a controlledcomposition gradient of Au/SiO2 wasdeposited on the substrate. This gradientlibrary was used to measure the electricalresistivity of the system over the full rangeof composition. Similar “composition-spread” methods were used to studytransition-metal-alloy superconductors inthe following years.6–8

These pioneering works spurred someenthusiasm for combinatorial materialsscience during the late 1960s and early1970s. Hanak et al., for example,6,8 madea substantial effort to find novel super-conductors at the RCA Laboratories usinggradient libraries. A similar technique wasalso used by Hartsough and Hammond9

in a study of A15-structure superconduct-ing V3Al. In this work, the ability to formthe phase in situ was critical, as the A15structure was inferred to be unstable above

700�C, well below the temperature requiredfor conventional metallurgical processing(over 1000�C). Geballe, Hammond, andco-workers used this technique in subse-quent studies of binary and pseudobinarysuperconductors.10

Independently, Berlincourt, at the U.S.Office of Naval Research (as director of thePhysical Science Division), proposed anational effort to conduct a search forhigh-temperature superconductors usinggradient-deposition methods and auto-mated screening techniques.11 This proposal,however, was not adopted, and interest incombinatorial materials methods waned.While this could have been due to manyissues, one certain factor is that the com-puters and analytical instruments avail-able at the time did not have the speed,automation, or resolution required tomake them effective tools for combinatorialmaterials studies. Today, of course, thesecapabilities exist. One can only imaginethe impact of combinatorial methods hadthey been further pursued and developedduring the intense search for high-temperature cuprate superconductors inthe 1980s, an effort that spanned more than10 years and involved thousands of scien-tists worldwide. Recently, van Dover et al.at Bell Laboratories continued to improvethe codeposited composition-spread tech-nique12 and performed extensive studiesof amorphous dielectrics, as discussed inthe first article in this issue by Takeuchiet al. Likewise, the second article, by Sunand Jabbour, also presents a convincingcase for the power of this methodology formaterials discovery in functional optical,electronic, and photonic materials.

While the current combinatorial mate-rials science renaissance is certainly in-spired by the success of discovery effortsin the biotechnology sector, and employsseminal ideas from the field’s early re-searchers, it is also a direct result of theenormous advances in instrumentation,computing resources, and the understand-ing of materials science in recent years.The articles collected in this issue of MRSBulletin are also a testament to the “com-ing of age” of this aspect of combinatorialmaterials science.13 In the article by Yooand Tsui, examples are reviewed of de-tailed, reliable phase-diagram mapping(including structural and physical charac-terization) using sophisticated moderntechniques such as molecular-beam epitaxy,micro-x-ray diffraction, and evanescentmicrowave impedance imaging. The ar-ticle by Zhao et al. illustrates a diffusionmultiple approach for rapid mapping ofbulk phase diagrams and mechanicalproperties such as hardness and elasticmodulus with an efficiency �3 orders of

magnitude higher than the conventionalone-alloy-at-a-time approach. This ap-proach evolves from the diffusion couplemethod, widely used by metallurgists formore than a century to study diffusion co-efficients and phase diagrams, but takesadvantage of advances in instrumentednanoindentation14,15 that allow effectivemeasurement of both elastic modulus andhardness from very small areas. Thus,for the first time, critical composition–property relations can be mapped usingdiffusion couples and diffusion multi-ples.16,17 The final article of this issue, byMeredith et al., reviews some uniqueapplications of the combinatorial andhigh-throughput approaches to polymermaterials science. This work is especiallyfocused on the development of quanti-tative measurements for the fundamentalcharacterization of the effects of processingvariables.18,19 Polymer materials also requirethe development of special techniques forlibrary preparation because the typicalsputtering and vapor deposition methodsare not applicable to polymers.18,20 Thisarticle also demonstrates the applicationof cell growth and proliferation to providea high-throughput analysis of potentialbiomaterials for tissue engineering.21

Because of limited space, we have chosennot to address applications of combinatorialmethods to the development of catalystsin this issue. This important applicationarea for combinatorial methods has gener-ated substantial interest and investmentfrom the chemical industry, and it hasbeen the subject of several conferences,papers, and reviews in recent years.22

The articles in this issue emphasize theimperative that combinatorial and high-throughput methods be developed further.They offer the possibility of meeting thefuture needs of materials discovery intimely, cost-effective, and thoroughly sys-tematic ways. We expect a lot from combi-natorial materials science. We hope thatthe following articles will persuade you toinvest your confidence and enthusiasm inthis exciting new field as well.

References1. J.C. Phillips, Physics of High-Tc Superconductors(Academic Press, New York, 1989).2. X.-D. Xiang, X.-D. Sun, G. Briceño, Y. Lou,K.-A. Wang, H. Chang, W.G. Wallace-Freedman,S.-W. Chen, and P.G. Schultz, Science 268 (1995)p. 1738.3. X.-D. Xiang, Annu. Rev. Mater. Sci. 29 (1999)p. 149.4. K. Kennedy, T. Stefansky, G. Davy, V.F. Zackay,and E.R. Parker, J. Appl. Phys. 36 (1965) p. 3808.5. N.C. Miller and G.A. Shirn, Appl. Phys. Lett.10 (1967) p. 86.6. J.J. Hanak, J.I. Gittleman, J.P. Pellicane, andS. Bozowski, Phys. Lett. 30A (1969) p. 201.

296 MRS BULLETIN/APRIL 2002

Combinatorial Materials Science:What’s New Since Edison?

7. E. Sawatzky and E. Kay, IBM J. Res. Develop.(November 1969) p. 696.8. J.J. Hanak, J. Mater. Sci. 5 (1970) p. 964.9. L.D. Hartsough and R.H. Hammond, SolidState Commun. 9 (1971) p. 885.10. R.H. Hammond, K.M. Ralls, C.H. Meyer Jr.,D.P. Snowden, G.M. Kelly, and J.H. Pereue Jr.,J. Appl. Phys. 43 (1972) p. 2407; R.H. Hammond,B.E. Jacobson, T.H. Geballe, J. Talvacchio, J.R.Salem, H.C. Pohl, and A.I. Braginski, IEEETrans. Magn. 15 (1979) p. 619; J. Kuo and T.H.Geballe, Phys. Rev. B 23 (1981) p. 3230.11. T. Berlincourt (private communication).

12. R.B. van Dover, B. Hessen, D. Werder, C.-H.Chen, and R.J. Felder, Chem. Mater. 5 (1993) p. 32.13. Y.K. Yoo, F.W. Duewer, H. Yang, D. Yi, J.-W.Li, and X.-D. Xiang, Nature 406 (2000) p. 704.14. W.C. Oliver and G.M. Pharr, J. Mater. Res. 7(1992) p. 1564.15. M.F. Doerner and W.D. Nix, J. Mater. Res. 1(1986) p. 601.16. J.-C. Zhao, Adv. Eng. Mater. 3 (2001) p. 143.17. J.-C. Zhao, J. Mater. Res. 16 (2001) p. 1565.18. J.C. Meredith, A. Karim, and E.J. Amis,Macromolecules 33 (2000) p. 5760.19. J.C. Meredith, A.P. Smith, A. Karim, and

E.J. Amis, Macromolecules 33 (2000) p. 9747.20. A.P. Smith, J. Douglas, J.C. Meredith, A.Karim, and E.J. Amis, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001)p. 15503.21. J.C. Meredith, A. Karim, and E.J. Amis, inACS Symposium Series: Combinatorial Approachesto Materials Development, edited by R. Malhotra(American Chemical Society, Washington, DC,2001).22. For example, see High-Throughput Synthesis,edited by I. Sucholeiki (Marcel Dekker, NewYork, 2001). ��



Eric J. Amis, GuestEditor for this issue ofMRS Bulletin, has beenchief of the PolymersDivision of the NationalInstitute of Standardsand Technology (NIST)since May 1999. In 1998,he initiated a programthat applies combinatorialand high-throughputmethods to measure-ments in materials sci-ence and biomaterials,which led to the estab-lishment of the NISTCombinatorial MethodsCenter.

Amis earned his PhDdegree in chemistryfrom the University ofWisconsin and workedas a National ResearchCouncil postdoctoralassociate at NIST’spredecessor, the Na-tional Bureau of Stan-dards. Before joiningNIST in 1995 to lead thePolymer Blends andProcessing Program,Amis spent 11 years asa faculty member in theChemistry Departmentof the University ofSouthern California.Since 1992, he has beenthe editor of the Journalof Polymer Science: PolymerPhysics Edition. He isalso a fellow of theAmerican PhysicalSociety (APS) and a pastchair of the APS Divisionof Polymer Physics. Amishas worked primarilyin the areas of solutionrheology combined withlight, neutron, and x-rayscattering methods to

investigate the physicsof complex systems,such as biomembranes,polyelectrolytes, associ-ating polymers, gels,polymer crystallization,and dendritic polymers.He has authored or co-authored more than150 scientific papers.

Amis can be reachedat the National Instituteof Standards and Tech-nology, Gaithersburg,MD 20899, USA; tel.301-975-6681 and [email protected].

Xiao-Dong Xiang,Guest Editor for thisissue of MRS Bulletin, isa senior staff scientist atSRI International. Since1993, Xiang has devotedhis research to combina-torial materials synthesisand high-throughputevaluation of functionalmaterials to acceleratethe discovery, optimiza-tion, and study of com-plex materials systems.

He received hisPhD degree in physicsfrom the University ofKentucky in 1989 andworked as a postdoctoralresearch fellow at theUniversity of California,Berkeley, from 1989 to1993. He then movedto Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratoryand was a career staffscientist and principalinvestigator. Xiang hasconducted extensiveresearch in solid-statephysics, materials re-search, and advanced

instrumentation. He dis-covered a new class ofhigh-Tc intercalated cop-per oxide superconduc-tors and performed thefirst series of electricaltransport measurementson single crystals ofintercalated oxide super-conductors and fulleridesuperconductors. Thisstudy yielded importantinformation on super-conducting mechanismsin these novel materials.Xiang has also designedand developed varioushigh-sensitivity instru-ments, including anextremely sensitivedisplacement detector(with a sensitivity of10�4 Å), a scanningevanescent microwaveprobe (resolution of�0.1 �m) for spatiallyresolved quantitativeevaluation of electro-magnetic impedance,and a highly sensitivespin-resonant micro-scope. He received the1996 Discover MagazineAward for TechnologicalInnovation, and in 2000

he received the R&DAward for his pioneeringwork in combinatorialmaterials science. Hehas authored or co-authored more than70 scientific papers andholds over 15 patents.

Xiang can bereached by e-mail [email protected].

Ji-Cheng (J.-C.) Zhao,Guest Editor of thisissue of MRS Bulletin,is a materials scientistat the General ElectricGlobal Research Centerin Niskayuna, N.Y.,where he has workedsince 1995. His researchfocuses on the designof advanced alloys andcoatings. His particularemphasis is on phasediagrams, thermo-dynamics, diffusion,and composition–structure–propertyrelationships in high-temperature alloys,composites, and coat-ings. Zhao developeda diffusion multipleapproach for the rapid

mapping of phase dia-grams and properties.

Zhao received his BS(1985) and MS degrees(1988) in materials fromCentral South University(CSU), China, and hisPhD degree in materialsfrom Lehigh University(1995) after teaching atCSU from 1988 to 1991.He has been honoredwith the Geisler Awardfrom ASM International(Eastern N.Y. Chapter)and the Hull Awardfrom the General ElectricCorporate ResearchCenter (now the GeneralElectric Global ResearchCenter). Zhao has30 publications and holdssix patents, with 20 morepending. He has alsoedited a book on mate-rials design approachesand experiences.

Zhao can be reachedby e-mail at [email protected].

Luke N. Brewer iscurrently a materialsscientist at the GeneralElectric Global Research

Eric J. Amis Ji-Cheng (J.-C.) ZhaoXiao-Dong Xiang

Center in Niskayuna,N.Y. His research in-volves the use of elec-tron microscopy andnanoindentation tech-niques to characterizethe microstructure andmechanical propertiesof metallic and ceramicmaterials. He is par-ticularly interested inthe deformation ofmaterials at micro- andnanometer length scales.Brewer received hisBS and PhD degrees inmaterials science andengineering from North-western University.

Brewer can bereached by e-mail [email protected].

Ghassan E. Jabbour ison the faculty of the Op-tical Sciences Center atthe University of Arizona.Some of his researchhas been in the area oforganic light-emittingdevices (OLEDs), in-cluding the introductionof novel air-stable elec-trodes, screen printing,ink-jet printing, andelectrode modification.He attended NorthernArizona University, theMassachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT),and the University ofArizona. He earned aPhD in materials scienceand engineering in 1994from Arizona. Jabbourspecializes in the devel-opment of materials,devices, and systems foroptical, electronic, anddata-storage applications.His recent projects in-volve work on organic-based solar cells, OLEDsfor lighting applications,printed photonic mate-rials and biomaterials,nanophotonics, optics,and the materials scienceof thin films. In additionto combinatorial research,Jabbour also works onthe development ofhybrid photosensitivematerials for variousapplications. Jabbour

is the editor of severalbooks related to theseareas. He has chairedmore than 15 confer-ences, including thenanotechnology trackfor the annual meetingof SPIE. He is also theassociate editor of theJournal of the Society forInformation Display (JSID).

Jabbour can bereached by e-mail [email protected].

Melvin R. Jackson isa metallurgist with theCeramic and MetallurgyTechnology Laboratoriesat the General ElectricGlobal Research Centerin Niskayuna, N.Y.He has concentratedhis research on high-temperature systems,phase equilibria, inter-diffusion, and inter-action. His currentinterests include thebehavior of refractorymetals, composites, andcoatings, and the repairof superalloy compo-nents. He received hisBS, MS, and PhD de-grees in metallurgy andmaterials science fromLehigh University in1965, 1967, and 1971,respectively. He is theco-author of more than100 published papersand holds 94 U.S.patents. In 1995, he wasawarded General Elec-tric’s highest researchachievement award, theCoolidge Fellowship.

Jackson can bereached at General Elec-

tric Global ResearchCenter, PO Box 8,Schenectady, NY 12301,USA; tel. 518-387-6362,fax 518-387-7495, ande-mail [email protected].

Alamgir Karim cur-rently leads the Multi-variant MeasurementMethods Group in thePolymers Division atthe National Institutefor Standards and Tech-nology (NIST). He alsoworks as the programmanager of NIST’sCombinatorial MethodsCenter, which engagesin the development ofcombinatorial and high-throughput methodsfor accelerating the paceof materials research.Previously, Karimworked as an interimgroup leader for thePolymer Blends andProcessing Group atNIST. His latest researchrelates to polymer thinfilms and coatings withan emphasis on phasetransitions in polymerblends, ordering behavior

of block copolymers,and properties of poly-mer brushes, reactiveblends, nanocomposites,and polymer interdiffu-sion at the molecularlevel using neutron re-flectivity and micros-copy techniques.

Karim received his BSdegree from St. Stephen’sCollege in Delhi, India,in 1985, and his PhDdegree in physics fromNorthwestern Univer-sity in 1990. He workedas an intern at IBM’s Al-maden Research Centerin San Jose in 1987 andperformed postdoctoralwork in the Departmentof Chemical Engineeringat the University ofMinnesota in 1991. Hewas a guest scientistat the University ofMaryland, College Park,for a year before joiningthe NIST Polymer Divi-sion in 1993.

Karim has publishedover 100 papers onpolymer thin-film re-search, chaired sessionsat national and inter-national conferences,

organized symposia atnational meetings ofthe American ChemicalSociety, the MaterialsResearch Society, andthe American PhysicalSociety, and has organ-ized workshops onnanocomposites, combi-natorial methods, andthe Vision 2020 technol-ogy roadmap at NIST.He has also edited twobooks on the topic ofpolymer interfacesand thin films.

Karim can bereached by e-mail [email protected].

Hideomi Koinuma is aprofessor in the FrontierCollaborative ResearchCenter and the Materi-als and Structures Labo-ratory within the TokyoInstitute of Technology.His interest in materialsresearch began withpolymer synthesis andcharacterization at theUniversity of Tokyo,where he received hisPhD degree in 1970. Hereturned to Tokyo aftera two-year postdoctoral



Ghassan E. Jabbour Melvin R. Jackson Alamgir Karim

Louis A. Peluso Ted X. Sun Ichiro Takeuchi

Luke N. Brewer



research position inchemical kinetics atKansas University andthen shifted his intereststo amorphous siliconand other thin-filmelectronic materials. Hiscurrent research is fo-cused on combinatorialnanotechnology forfunctional oxides. Hefounded the Inter-national Workshop onOxide Electronics in1995 and the Japan–U.S. workshop onCombinatorial MaterialsScience and Technologyin 2000.

Koinuma can bereached by e-mailat [email protected].

Yi-Qun Li is presidentof Intematix Corpora-tion in Moraga, Calif.He currently concen-trates his efforts onbuilding a business de-veloping electronic ma-terials and components,with a core technologyof combinatorial mate-rials synthesis and high-throughput screening.

He received his BS andMS degrees in materialsscience from Northeast-ern University in Chinaand his PhD degree inmaterials science fromthe Stevens Institute ofTechnology in 1992. Heserved as a researchassistant professor fortwo years at Stevens(1992–1994), thenworked as a researchengineer for a year atAdvanced TechnologyMaterials Inc. beforejoining NZ AppliedTechnologies (recentlyacquired by Corning).It was there that he es-tablished and managedresearch programs thatincluded magneto-resistance memory, in-frared imaging materials,magnetic sensors, ferro-electric memory, andmagnetic optical devices.In 1998, he founded theSpinix Corporationbased on his inventionof novel passive solid-state magnetic sensors.

Li can be reachedby e-mail at [email protected].

J. Carson Meredith isan assistant professorin the School of Chemi-cal Engineering at theGeorgia Institute ofTechnology. His currentresearch interests includefundamental propertiesof colloidal, nano-particle, and thin-filmadvanced materials,with an emphasis oncombinatorial methodsand computer simula-tions. In 1993, he receiveda BChE degree fromthe School of ChemicalEngineering at GeorgiaTech. Meredith thenearned his PhD inchemical engineeringfrom the University ofTexas at Austin (1998).Prior to joining theGeorgia Tech faculty, hecompleted a two-yearNRC postdoctoralappointment in thePolymers Division ofthe National Instituteof Standards and Tech-nology (NIST).

Meredith can bereached by e-mail [email protected].

Louis A. Peluso is aphysicist at the GeneralElectric Global ResearchCenter in Niskayuna,N.Y., where he leadselectron microprobeanalysis. His researchinterests includestudies of composition–microstructure–propertyrelationships in Ni-basedand Ti-based alloys, aswell as environmentaland thermal-barriercoatings for Ni-basedsuperalloys. He hasconducted materialsresearch using a varietyof analytical techniques,including x-ray, electron-beam, and ion-beammethods, and has anumber of publicationsdetailing research usingthese characterizationmethods. Peluso receivedhis BS degree in physicsfrom the State Universityof New York at Albanyin 1982 and is a memberof the Microbeam Analy-sis Society. He currentlyserves as vice chairmanof the Hudson–MohawkChapter of the Minerals,Metals, and MaterialsSociety (TMS).

Peluso can be reachedat the General ElectricGlobal Research Center,K-1 2C35, 1 ResearchCircle, Niskayuna, NY12309, USA, and bye-mail at [email protected].

Ted X. Sun is one of theoriginal researchers whoparticipated in the de-velopment of combina-torial materials chemistryat Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratoryfrom 1993 to 1998. Helater joined GeneralElectric Corporate R&Din Schenectady, N.Y.,where he led the effortin combinatorial re-search on solid-statematerials. His work onhigh-throughput mate-rials research covers vari-ous industrial materialsincluding luminescent

and magnetic materials,superconductors, poly-mers, coatings, catalysts,and nanomaterials. Heis the author of about10 publications on com-binatorial research onsolid-state materials.In 2000, he co-foundedParallel Synthesis Tech-nologies Inc., a SiliconValley biotechnologycompany developinghigh-throughput screen-ing techniques andmicroelectromechanicalsystems (MEMS) prod-ucts for applications inthe field of molecularbiology.

Sun can be reachedby e-mail at [email protected].

Ichiro Takeuchi is anassistant professor in theDepartment of MaterialsScience and Engineeringand the Center for Super-conductivity Researchat the University ofMaryland. His researchinterests include novelmultilayer thin-filmdevices, scanning probemicroscopes, and thedevelopment and appli-cation of combinatorialmethodology for elec-tronic thin-film mate-rials. He received his BSdegree in physics fromthe California Instituteof Technology in 1987and his PhD degree inphysics from the Uni-versity of Maryland in1996. He was a post-doctoral research fellowat Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratoryfrom 1996 to 1999. Hereceived the Office ofNaval Research’s YoungInvestigator Award in2000 and the NationalScience Foundation’sCAREER Award in 2001.

Takeuchi can bereached by e-mail [email protected].

Frank Tsui is an associ-ate professor of physicsand research and of ap-

Hideomi Koinuma Yi-Qun Li J. Carson Meredith

Frank Tsui Robert Bruce van Dover Young K. Yoo

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plied and materials sci-ence at the Universityof North Carolina atChapel Hill. The focusof his research has beenthe atomic-scale synthe-sis and characterizationof magnetic heterostruc-tures using molecular-beam epitaxy techniques.He received his BSdegree in engineeringphysics from the Uni-versity of California,Berkeley, in 1984 andhis MS (1987) and PhD(1992) degrees in physicsfrom the Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was aMargaret and HermanSokol Postdoctoral Fel-low in the sciences at theUniversity of Michigan.He then joined the fac-ulty at the Universityof North Carolina in1995 as an assistant pro-fessor of physics. Hehas been honored withthe National ScienceFoundation’s FacultyEarly Career Develop-ment Award.

Tsui can be reached atthe University of NorthCarolina, Department ofPhysics and Astronomy,CB #3255, Chapel Hill,NC 27599, USA, andby e-mail at [email protected].

Robert Bruce vanDover is a distinguishedmember of the technicalstaff at Agere Systems.His research on super-conducting, magnetic,electronic, and opticalmaterials has centeredon the intersection ofmaterials synthesis, ma-terials characterization,device design, and de-vice characterization.He received a BS degreein electrical engineeringfrom Princeton Univer-sity and a PhD degreein applied physics fromStanford University(1980). He is a fellow ofthe American PhysicalSociety, a senior member

of the IEEE, and hasserved as the secretary-treasurer of the AmericanPhysical Society TopicalGroup on Magnetismand its Applications sinceits founding in 1996.

Van Dover canbe reached bye-mail at [email protected].

Young K. Yoo is the vicepresident of researchand development atIntematix Corporationin Moraga, Calif. Usingcombinatorial materialssynthesis tools andhigh-throughput screen-ing techniques, his re-search has focused oncontinuous physical andstructural phase map-ping of complex oxideand metallic alloy sys-tems. Since joiningIntematix, he has over-seen the design anddevelopment of newcombinatorial thin-filmdeposition and screen-ing tools as well as newmaterials discoveryprojects. His current re-search interests includedielectric materials,magnetic semiconduc-tors, magnetic alloys,and high-temperaturesuperconductors. Hereceived a BA degreein physics with honorsfrom the University ofChicago (1995) and aPhD degree in physicsfrom the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley,in 2000.

Yoo can be reachedby e-mail at [email protected]. ��



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Combinatorial Materials Science: What's New Since Edison?€¦ · at Thomas Edison, despite his enormous success). In part, the academic reaction finds its foundation in the healthy