Materials matter. Proof of this, if further proof were necessary, came with the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their “groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”. The prize itself will have come as no surprise to most materials scientists, as graphene research has been one of the hottest scientific fields practically since the first report of its discovery and has spawned a wealth of papers and review articles including the first ever review published in NPG Nature Asia Materials (T. Ando, NPG Asia Mater. 1(1) 17–21, 2009).

However it is perhaps worth considering the wider implications of this year’s award. Firstly, although few would disagree with graphene garnering the physics prize in view of its fascinating electronic, optical and spin transport properties, that the award should be made now a mere six years after the first report of its discovery has surprised some. But many materials scientists are likely to see the early recognition of graphene’s importance as a testament to the speed with which materials science is developing and a measure of the dynamism of the field as a whole.

Secondly, whilst a worthy winner in the physics category, it could be argued that graphene could equally well have received the chemistry award given its similarity to other pure carbon forms such as fullerene — the discovery of which was honored in that category in 1996. The impression is strengthened by a veritable avalanche of papers on the synthesis and investigation of graphene derivatives such as graphene oxide, graphene composites and graphene nanoribbons. In the synthesis of graphene itself, the debate over the relative merits of different fabrication processes — rational synthesis, mechanical exfoliation or ultrasonic chemical flaking to name but three — rages on.

Here again, materials scientists would no doubt make the point that the fact that graphene could realistically be considered for recognition in two categories speaks of the breadth of their field. Either way, that materials science suffers from an embarrassment of riches in this area can only be considered a good thing.

Whilst on the subject of the 2010 Nobel prizes, it would be remiss not to comment on the winners of the chemistry award as well. Few Nobel decisions in recent decades will have been as unsurprising and eagerly awaited as the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for their work on “palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings in organic synthesis”. Indeed, in many quarters, the announcement will likely have been greeted with a heartfelt “about time”.

Not only was the subject of the award immediately recognizable as ‘proper’ chemistry after a string of awards in recent years that some felt strained the definition of the term almost to breaking point, it was also one widely felt to be long overdue. In fact over the years, guessing on when palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling would be recognized by the Nobel committee had assumed the status of something akin to a parlor game for many chemists, some of whom may secretly have feared that the day would never come.

The impact of the methodology on a broad range of fields — from organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry and supramolecular chemistry to chemical biology and, of course, materials science — is hard to overstate. The work of Heck, Negishi and Suzuki, as well as the tireless efforts of a great many other renowned researchers around the world — a number of whom would also have been worthy choices for the award — have changed the direction of both academic and industrial research like few others, opening routes to new synthetic strategies as well as a range of new products such as pharmaceuticals, pigments and of course materials.

The depth and breadth of materials science as a field is again shown by the three reviews that are published in this issue of NPG Asia Materials. In the first of these, Martin Vacha and Satoshi Habuchi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan examine the implications of recent advances in single-molecule optical detection and spectroscopy for polymer sciences. They look at the way the techniques allow researchers to relate the structure and shape of individual polymer chains to their physical properties, something hitherto not possible to achieve due to the masking of polymers’ local properties by the large size of the polymer chains.

Following this, Tony Hughes and co-workers from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO) talk about eco-friendly protection strategies for metals. In their review, they present an account of recent protocols developed for limiting corrosion and repairing damaged materials whilst still adhering to new requirements for health and environmental impact. They discuss the relative merits of prevention versus cure and examine the recent use of amines as ‘green’ corrosion inhibitors as well as the role of polymer science and encapsulation techniques in the preparation of self-healing or self-repairing paint films.

The final review by Jing-Feng Li and colleagues from Tsinghua University in China describes recent developments in high-performance nanostructured thermoelectric materials for the conversion of heat into electricity. In particular, they focus on the way in which the structure of these materials at the nano-level influences their physical, electronic and thermal properties, leading to a discussion on the implications of nano-scale heterogeneity and nano-dispersion in this field.

The three reviews in this issue, along with a selection of the research highlights published on the NPG Asia Materials website (www.natureasia.com/asia-materials) each week neatly illustrate the diversity and cross-disciplinary nature of materials science and show that whilst it does not have a Noble Prize of its own, materials science is in some way connected with the highest accolade in science more often than many people realize.