page_title: Characterization (materials science)
section_title: Macroscopic testing
hierarchical_section_title: Characterization (materials science) / Macroscopic testing
caption_attribution_description: English: (a) effective refractive indexes and (b) absorption coefficients of the electronic chips.
context_page_description: Characterization, when used in materials science, refers to the broad and general process by which a material's structure and properties are probed and measured. It is a fundamental process in the field of materials science, without which no scientific understanding of engineering materials could be ascertained. The scope of the term often differs; some definitions limit the term's use to techniques which study the microscopic structure and properties of materials, while others use the term to refer to any materials analysis process including macroscopic techniques such as mechanical testing, thermal analysis and density calculation. The scale of the structures observed in materials characterization ranges from angstroms, such as in the imaging of individual atoms and chemical bonds, up to centimeters, such as in the imaging of coarse grain structures in metals.
  While many characterization techniques have been practiced for centuries, such as basic optical microscopy, new techniques and methodologies are constantly emerging.
context_section_description: A huge range of techniques are used to characterize various macroscopic properties of materials, including:
  Mechanical testing, including tensile, compressive, torsional, creep, fatigue, toughness and hardness testing
  Differential thermal analysis (DTA)
  Dielectric thermal analysis (DEA, DETA)
  Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)
  Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
  Impulse excitation technique (IET)
  Ultrasound techniques, including resonant ultrasound spectroscopy and time domain ultrasonic testing methods
caption: (a) effective refractive indexes and (b) absorption coefficients of the electronic chips.[8]
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