Timeline of condensed matter physics

This article lists the main historical events in the history of condensed matter physics. This area of physics studies the properties and changes between phases of matter. Condensed matter means materials where particles like atoms, molecules, or ions are close together, such as solids and liquids. This field looks at many phenomena, including the electronic, magnetic, thermal, and mechanical properties of matter.

This timeline includes developments in areas such as theoretical crystallography, solid-state physics, soft matter physics, mesoscopic physics, material physics, low-temperature physics, microscopic theories of magnetism, and the optical properties of matter and metamaterials.

Even though people studied material properties before 1900, condensed matter physics became a part of physics with the development of quantum mechanics and theories about matter. According to Philip W. Anderson, the term "condensed matter" started being used around 1965.

For the history of fluid mechanics, see the timeline of fluid and continuum mechanics.

Before quantum mechanics

Prehistory

Long ago, people made useful things from materials around them. Between 28,000 and 12,000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic time, the earliest ceramic objects were made for special purposes. From 10,000 to 3300 BC, in the Neolithic period, people developed pottery and learned about making glass and working with metals. The Bronze Age, from 3300 to 1200 BC, saw the creation of bronze by mixing copper and tin. In the Iron Age, from 1200 to 300 BC, iron and steel began to replace bronze.

Antiquity

In ancient times, people discovered many interesting properties of materials. In the 8th century BC, writings in Ancient Greece first talked about the magnetic pull of lodestone. In the 6th century BC, Thales of Miletus noticed that rubbing fur on substances like amber made them stick together — this is now known as static electricity. Leucippus and Democritus came up with the idea that everything is made of tiny, indivisible parts called atoms. Aristotle described matter using four basic elements. Pliny the Elder wrote about a shepherd named Magnes who found that some iron stones could attract things. Claudius Ptolemy wrote about how light bends when it passes through different materials.

Classical theories before the 19th century

Many important discoveries were made before the 1800s. In 1611, Johannes Kepler talked about how spheres can fit together in space. Willebrord Snellius described how light bends between different materials. Robert Hooke discovered a basic rule about how stretchy materials behave. Isaac Newton explained motion and gravity, and also studied heat. Stephen Gray found that metals can carry electricity. Anton Brugmans discovered that some materials push away magnetic fields. René Just Haüy found that crystals break along specific planes, suggesting they are made of tiny, repeating building blocks.

19th century

The 1800s brought many new discoveries about materials and electricity. Alessandro Volta created the first battery. John Dalton revisited the idea that everything is made of atoms. Thomas Seebeck found that temperature differences can create electricity. Joseph Fourier explained how heat moves through materials. Georg Ohm discovered the relationship between electricity and voltage in metals. Michael Faraday studied how magnetic fields affect light. James Prescott Joule measured how electricity creates heat. Louis Pasteur showed that some crystals come in mirror-image forms. Auguste Bravais described the different ways crystals can repeat their patterns in space. Many other scientists made important findings about crystals, heat, light, and electricity during this time.

20th century

The 20th century had many important discoveries in condensed matter physics. This science studies the properties of materials where atoms are close together, like solids and liquids.

In the early 1900s, scientists used quantum theory to explain things like how light is emitted by hot objects and how metals conduct electricity. Important figures like Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr helped with these ideas. One big discovery was superconductivity, where some materials lose all electrical resistance at very low temperatures. This was found by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911.

The later part of the century had even more breakthroughs. Theories were developed to explain things like magnetism, sound in solids, and how electrons act in different materials. Important moments include the invention of the transistor in 1947, which changed electronics, and the discovery of high-temperature superconductors in the 1980s. These could change how we send power and use medical imaging. In 1995, scientists created a Bose-Einstein condensate, showing how particles can act as one quantum group at very low temperatures.

21st century

In the early 2000s, scientists learned a lot about materials and how they act.

In 2000, they measured something called the thermal conductance quantum. That same year, a scientist named Alexei Kitaev shared a new idea about special chains of particles.

In 2003, Deborah S. Jin made the first fermionic condensate, which is a new kind of matter. In 2004, researchers made a very thin, strong material called single-layer graphene.

More discoveries came later. In 2005, scientists talked about the quantum spin Hall effect. Between 2008 and 2010, they created a special chart for topological matter.

In 2013, the quantum anomalous Hall effect was seen for the first time. In 2015, they showed that Weyl semimetals exist. In 2018, twisted graphene was found to move electricity perfectly, a thing called superconductivity. Most recently, in 2024, scientists found something called altermagnetism.