Such materials have greatly improved properties offering both better performance and new applications. A few examples follow. Our electronic devices require smaller and faster components. Commercial and military aircraft as well as our space probes need new lighter alloys and stronger welds for increased speed using less fuel. Automobiles are using more high-temperature materials, lightweight alloys, and plastics to become more fuel efficient and less polluting.
Computers require ever-increasing storage capacity using magnetic materials.
New high-temperature superconducting materials promise more efficient motors and power transmission. And designer drugs and genetic engineering are revolutionizing medicine and health care. As the following pages illustrate, neutron-scattering research plays an important role in all these areas and more. Powerful neutron beams will be produced in the SNS facility by bombarding a mercury target with energetic protons from a large accelerator complex. Powerful neutron beams will be produced in the SNS facility by bombarding a mercury target with energetic protons from a large accelerator complex.