The success of many emerging technologies hinges on the discovery of new materials that exhibit a combination of desired properties (e.g., mechanical, optical, catalytic, etc.). Identification, synthesis, and fabrication of suitable materials for these applications remain challenging, relying on resource-intensive exploratory science. The classical (or forward) discovery approach involves inspecting the properties of a diverse array of existing materials and selecting the one that best fits the target characteristics, or fabricating and characterizing new materials through combinatorial analysis of promising material precursors and synthesis techniques. From an engineering design perspective, a better approach might be to adopt an inverse strategy that begins with the target macroscopic properties in mind and then systematically narrows the list of possible material precursors and synthetic approaches consistent with these properties through an optimization technique. Such inverse design methods are the topic of the August AIChE Journal Perspective article, "Inverse Methods for Material Design," by Avni Jain, Jonathan Bollinger, and Thomas Truskett of the Univ. of Texas at Austin.
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