Ideal for a variety of courses in materials science, Properties of Materials offers students a wide-ranging and introductory survey of this exciting field. It uses an atomic and molecular approach to introduce the basic principles of materials science from the perspective of various properties--optical, thermal, electrical, magnetic, and mechanical--highlighting the relationships among the properties. Opening with a general introduction to issues in materials science, the text goes on to discuss various types of matter: metals, semiconductors (intrinsic and extrinsic), insulators, glasses, orientationally disordered crystals, defective solids, liquid crystals, Fullerenes, Langmuir-Blodgett films, colloids, inclusion compounds, and more. The volume incorporates several pedagogical features including extensive further reading suggestions and problems at the end of each chapter, comment sections on applications of materials science, comprehensive biographical notes on major contributors to the field, and a helpful website that updates recent references to the contemporary literature. In addition, the book includes unique tutorials that enable students to apply the principles they have learned in order to work out the physical principles behind such important advances as the photocopy process, photography, fiber optics, heat storage materials, magnetic devices, and more.