The interdisciplinary field of materials science, also commonly known as materials science and engineering, involves the discovery and design of new materials, with an emphasis on solids. The intellectual origins of materials science stem from the Enlightenment, when researchers began to use analytical thinking from chemistry, physics, and engineering to understand ancient, phenomenological observations in metallurgy and mineralogy. Materials science still incorporates elements of physics, chemistry, and engineering. In recent years, materials science has become more widely recognized as a specific and distinct field of science and engineering. Many of the most pressing scientific problems humans currently face are due to the limitations of the materials that are available and, as a result, breakthroughs in materials science are likely to have a significant impact on the future of technology.

  In the present book, numerous literatures about materials science published on international authoritative journals were selected to introduce the worldwide newest progress, which contains reviews or original researches on metallic materials, inorganic non-metallic materials, polymer materials and composite materials and so on. We hope this book can demonstrate advances in materials science as well as give references to the researchers, students and other related people.