Timeline of materials technology

Before Common Era

29,00025,000 BCE – First ceramic appears
3rd millennium BC – Copper metallurgy is invented and copper is used for ornamentation
2nd millennium BC – Bronze is used for weapons and armour
1st millennium BC – Pewter beginning to be used in China and Egypt
16th century BC – The Hittites develop crude iron metallurgy
13th century BC – Invention of steel when iron and charcoal are combined properly
10th century BC – Glass production begins in Greece and Syria
50s BC – Glassblowing techniques flourish in Phoenicia
20s BC – Roman architect Vitruvius describes low-water-content method for mixing concrete

1450s – Crystallo, a clear soda-based glass is invented by Angelo Barovier
1590 – Glass lenses are developed in the Netherlands and used for the first time in microscopes and telescopes

1738 – William Champion patents a process for the production of metallic zinc by distillation from calamine and charcoal
1740 – Benjamin Huntsman developed the crucible steel technique
1779 – Bry Higgins issued a patent for hydraulic cement (stucco) for use as an exterior plaster
1799 – Alessandro Volta makes a copper/zinc acid battery

1821 – Thomas Johann Seebeck invents the thermocouple
1824 – Patent issued to Joseph Aspin for portland cement
1825 – Hans Christian Ørsted produces metallic aluminium
1839 – Charles Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber
1839 – Louis Daguerre and William Fox Talbot invent silver-based photographic processes
1855 – Bessemer process for mass production of steel patented
1861 – James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates color photography
1883 – Charles Fritts makes the first solar cells using selenium wafers

1902 – August Verneuil develops a process for making synthetic rubies
1909 – Leo Baekeland presents the Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic
1911 – Superconductivity discovered
1912 – Harry Brearley invents stainless steel
1916 – Jan Czochralski invents a method for growing single crystals of metals
1924 – Corning Incorporated scientists invent Pyrex, a glass with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion
1931 – Julius Nieuwland develops the synthetic rubber called neoprene
1931 – Wallace Carothers develops nylon
1938 – Roy Plunkett discovers the process for making poly-tetrafluoroethylene, better known as teflon
1947 – First germanium transistor invented
1947 – First commercial application of a piezoelectric ceramic: barium titanate used as a phonograph needle
1951 – Individual atoms seen for the first time using the Field ion microscope
1953 – Karl Ziegler discovers metallic catalysts which greatly improve the strength of polyethylene polymers
1954 – 6% efficiency silicon solar cells made at Bell Laboratories
1959 – Pilkington Brothers patent the float glass process
1962 – SQUID superconducting quantum interference device invented
1968 – Liquid crystal display developed by RCA
1970 – Silica optical fibers grown by Corning Incorporated
1970 – invention of AOD refining (argon oxygen decarburization)
1980 – development of duplex stainless steels which resist oxidation in chlorides