Ceramic engineers in the 21st century

Ceramics engineers in the 21st century will work on lowering costs, increasing reliability and increasing reproducibility of structural ceramics. Within electronics, ceramists will need to wisely select substrate and film materials that can work together to yield the desired properties. Increasing the size of chips while decreasing the size of chip features will be important. Coating processes will become more widely used as interface chemistry becomes more understood. The development of coating techniques (and the design of new ones) will improve this understanding. Characterization tools -- such as AFM, which allows surface analysis with high resolution -- also should prove significant. In composites, the challenge is broad: to develop combinations of materials whereby certain properties are enhanced while costs are kept feasible, if not marketable.