Frederick F. LANGE

University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

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Title: A Materials World: Revolutions in Society

Throughout our existence, new materials has revolutionized our social/economic infrastructure. Metals— copper, bronze, iron, and today, aluminum and titanium—produced some of the first changes. Likewise, inorganic materials ranging from concrete to the glasses have done the same. Our life would be difficult without the electronic material, silicon. Easily molded and blown, polymers, and polymer composites that contain carbon fibers, have replaced some metals and glasses in many applications. Polymers now offer opportunities to replace many of the “hard” electronic materials for devices and displays. Biomolecules that form the much softer biomaterials, with complicated architectures, within our body are beginning to be produced outside of the body. The lecture will present several historical events where materials have revolutionized society, culminating with how the wide band-gap gallium nitride alloys will revolutionize how we light up the world.