Mössbauer Spectroscopy in Physical Metallurgy

In materials science, three discoveries had a great impact on our Society, that is, on its understanding of science and technology. The first of these, dislocations, has just had its 50th anniversary. Dislocations were discovered by Orowan [1], Polanyi [2], and Taylor [3]. With the concept of dislocations we are able to get a better insight into the nature of metals, in particular their mechanical properties and their plastic deformation behavior. Second,in the early fifties Welker [4] discovered the electrical properties of III-V Compounds. They play a dominating role in the semiconductor and microelectronic industries. Third, also in the middle of the Century, amorphous metals were discovered and, in the following years more and more technological applications were found for them. Although the great significance of these three discoveries has been well recognized, they have not been honored by the Nobel Prize, the highest award for achievement in natural science. In our opinion the reason for this unfortunate omission is the fact that, for the chemist, these discoveries invoke too much physics and, for the physicist, the materials are too dirty.