Materials are the building blocks of the emerging devices and hence study of materials and devices has always attracted scientists and engineers across the globe. Knowledge of their structure, properties and synthesis methods is therefore, fundamental to economic, social and industrial development. To fulfil various societal needs and demands we have always looked for new materials and devices. With the rapid growth in the life style of human in the last few decades the thrust in research of materials and devices has only increased. This thrust for emerging materials and devices has led the researchers to discover various new materials including Nano materials, fullerenes, carbon nanotube, Graphene, high-k dielectrics, strained Si, conductive polymers etc., each offering unique applications. As the device dimension is shrinking to Nano regime, new design constraints have led to different device configuration and geometries. It is therefore, very important that the researchers working in the field of materials and devices are equipped with the right knowledge of modern tools and methods used in processing and characterization of these emerging materials and devices.

On the level of materials science research, represents a new genre of materials with its own logic of effect that cannot be described simply in terms of the usual categories of heavy and light or form, construction, and surface.  The materials like Salmon leather, Wood-Skin flexible wood panel material, Re Wall Naked board, Coe Lux lighting system, Bling Crete light-reflecting concrete and many other new innovations have created amazing and unique characteristics of the materials, for example Coelux lightening system where the scientists used a thin coating of nanoparticles to accurately simulate sunlight through Earth’s atmosphere and the effect known as Rayleigh scattering. Soft materials are another emerging class of materials that includes gels, colloids, liquids, foams, and coatings.   

Imagine a world where unique phenomena at the molecular scale can lead to entirely new, innovative, and transformative product designs—all done by utilizing properties of materials at the Nano scale level. Nano scale materials are not new to nature or in science. What is new is the ability to engineer nanomaterial, specifically designed with controlled sizes, shapes and compositions, in addition to driving down costs through the adaptation of new and improved manufacturing technology. Carbon Nano materials are an enabler for technology with seemingly endless potential applications: detecting cancer before it spreads, self-repairing buildings and bridges, filtering water, and powering mobile devices from body heat or movement.  Carbon nanotubes are incredibly small and incredibly strong, 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth of the density and 10,000 times smaller than one human hair. Graphene is a carbon membrane that, at just one atom thick, is stronger than steel and can tolerate of wide temperature and pH ranges.

Emerging technologies are characterized by radical novelty, relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, an emerging technology can be defined as "a radically novel and relatively fast growing technology characterised by a certain degree of coherence persisting over time and with the potential to exert a considerable impact on the socio-economic domain(s) which is observed in terms of the composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interactions among those, along with the associated knowledge production processes.
New technological fields may result from the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence brings previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video together so that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies.

Biomaterials can be derived either from nature or synthesized in the laboratory using a variety of chemical approaches utilizing metallic components, polymers, ceramics or composite materials. Scientists are further developing and researching for advanced biological materials which will be providing unique and advanced materials, technological significance of this area is immense for applications as diverse as tissue engineering and drug delivery biosystems to bio mimicked sensors and optical devices which is Bioinspired, biomimetic and Nano biomaterials are emerging as the most promising area of research within the area of biological materials science and engineering. Synthetic biology studies how to build artificial biological systems for engineering applications, using many of the same tools and experimental techniques. But the work is fundamentally an engineering application of biological science. The focus is often on ways of taking parts of natural biological systems, characterizing and simplifying them, and using them as a component of a highly unnatural, engineered, biological system.

Next-generation materials include super-light materials and active materials that react to changes in their environment and ultimately smart materials that explain how they are doing. Auxetic materials: When stretched, auxetic materials become thicker perpendicular to the applied force. This occurs due to their hinge-like structures, which flex when stretched. Auxetics may be useful in applications such as body armour, packing material, knee and elbow pads, robust shock absorbing material, and sponge mops. Thermo-bimetals: Thermally activated bimetals would allow for panes of glass capable of becoming shades when exposed to the sun, self-regulating energy consumption throughout the day. Smart materials: Designed materials that have one or more properties that can be significantly changed in a controlled fashion by external stimuli, such as stress, temperature, moisture, pH, electric or magnetic fields.

Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time. A device that stores energy is sometimes called an accumulator. Energy comes in multiple forms including radiation, chemical, gravitational potential, electrical potential, electricity, elevated temperature, latent heat and kinetic. Energy storage involves converting energy from forms that are difficult to store to more conveniently or economically storable forms. Bulk energy storage is dominated by pumped hydro, which accounts for 99% of global energy storage.

Efficient energy storage is one of the key points to be solved for a successful development of renewable energies. In addition, the increasing demand for energy sources to power various portable equipment for microelectronics, safety, medical applications, army, smart phones, telecommunications, tools, etc… but also large size applications like electric vehicles and smart grids requires new high performance materials.

Materials with a precise shape, geometry and arrangement which can affect light and sound in unconventional manners are considered as a functional materials Biomaterials, Meta materials, graphene, Nano-electricmechanical systems are new functional materials which has been constantly improved and utilized in different sectors where potential applications are diverse including drug delivery, improve grafting in transplants, remote aerospace applications, infrastructure monitoring, smart solar power management, and public safety, improving ultrasonic sensors, and even shielding structures from earthquakes. Components with higher strength to weight ratios, lower cost solar cells, lower cost display screens in mobile devices, storing hydrogen for fuel cell powered cars, medical sensors, faster charging batteries, ultra capacitors. NEMS typically integrate transistor-like Nano electronics with mechanical actuators, pumps, or motors, and may thereby form physical, biological, and chemical sensors.

The investigation of physical and chemical process that happens by mixing of two phases, including solid–liquid/ solid–gas/ solid–vacuum/ liquid–gas interfaces is named as Surface Science and the practical application of surface science in related fields like chemistry and physics is known as Surface Engineering. Surface Chemistry manages with the alteration of chemical composition of a surface by introducing functional groups and certain other elements whereas Surface physics deals with the physical changes that occur at interfaces. Techniques involved in Surface engineering are spectroscopy of methods X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, low-energy electron diffraction, electron energy loss spectroscopy, thermal desorption spectroscopy, ion scattering spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, dual polarization interferometry, etc.