Timeline of Materials Technology - 2nd Millennium - 20th Century

20th Century

  • 1902 – Synthetic rubies created by the Verneuil process developed by Auguste Verneuil
  • 1908 - Cellophane invented by Jacques E. Brandenberger
  • 1909 – Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic presented by Leo Baekeland
  • 1911 – Superconductivity discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
  • 1912 – Stainless steel invented by Harry Brearley
  • 1916 – Method for growing single crystals of metals invented by Jan Czochralski
  • 1924 – Pyrex invented by scientists at Corning Incorporated, a glass with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion
  • 1931 – synthetic rubber called neoprene developed by Julius Nieuwland (see also: E.K. Bolton, Wallace Carothers)
  • 1931 – Nylon developed by Wallace Carothers
  • 1938 – The process for making poly-tetrafluoroethylene, better known as Teflon discovered by Roy Plunkett
  • 1939 – Dislocations in metals confirmed by Robert W. Cahn
  • 1947 – First germanium point-contact transistor invented
  • 1947 – First commercial application of a piezoelectric ceramic: barium titanate used as a phonograph pickup
  • 1951 – Individual atoms seen for the first time using the field ion microscope
  • 1953 – Metallic catalysts which greatly improve the strength of polyethylene polymers discovered by Karl Ziegler
  • 1954 – Silicon solar cells with 6% efficiency made at Bell Laboratories
  • 1954 – Argon oxygen decarburization (AOD) refining invented by scientists at the Union Carbide Corporation
  • 1959 – Float glass process patented by the Pilkington Brothers
  • 1962 – SQUID superconducting quantum interference device invented
  • 1968 – Liquid crystal display developed by RCA
  • 1970 – Silica optical fibers grown by Corning Incorporated
  • 1980 – Duplex stainless steels developed which resist oxidation in chlorides
  • 1985 - The first fullerene molecule discovered by scientists at Rice University (see also: Timeline of carbon nanotubes)

Read more about this topic:  Timeline Of Materials Technology, 2nd Millennium