Introduction

Materials have always been instrumental for technological progress and social change in the development of mankind and civilization.1For example, the industrial age and the industrial revolution were possible because of progress in steel fabrication, which allowed for the development of thermomechan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of materials research 2017-11, Vol.32 (21), p.3921
Main Authors: Braun, Artur, Diale, Mmantsae, Malherbe, Johan B, Braun, Max
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical industry
Chemical reactors
Crystal surfaces
Electronic devices
Epitaxial growth
Film growth
Germanium
Industrial Revolution
Logic circuits
Magnetic thin films
Materials research
P-n junctions
Processors
Quantum dots
Semiconductors
Social change
Steel converters
Thin films
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Summary:Materials have always been instrumental for technological progress and social change in the development of mankind and civilization.1For example, the industrial age and the industrial revolution were possible because of progress in steel fabrication, which allowed for the development of thermomechanical energy converters and reactor vessels for a chemical industry, in the course of which global population experienced unprecedented exponential growth.2The older generations among the readers of this Focus Issue have experienced how a new industrial revolution featuring semiconductor technology and computer processors led mankind to the information age.The fact that epitaxial growth could be understood at the qualitative and quantitative level was a precondition for the success of semiconductor processing which warranted the corresponding device technology for integrated and miniaturized logic circuits and computer processors.The same held for overlayers and thin films thereof when electronic devices were made.12Christensen and Teal filed in 1951 a patent which described the process of deposition of a film which continued the structure of the underlying substrate13and which was used for forming an epitaxial Germanium p-n junction.14 Following the qualitative and quantitative knowledge of the thermodynamic principles governing coherency strain and thin film growth, practical knowledge and experience was developed in many laboratories for tailoring thin films and coherency strain with various aspects of defect management in materials.
ISSN:0884-2914
2044-5326
DOI:10.1557/jmr.2017.426