major advance in material science

Requirements:

Your essay must describe a major advance in material science & engineering announce by researcher or manufacturers since the beginning of 2017. The major advance can be either:
A completely new material, or
A significant improvement in the processing or properties of an existing martial, or
A novel use for (or adaptation of) a material made by a plant or an animal.
Note that, subject to the above constraint, the topic of your essay is completely up to you; there is no need to get the topic pre-approved by your instructor.

Your essay must be between 1500 and 2000 words in length, and it may, in addition, contain up to 2 graphics.
Your essay must be your own work and in your own words.
Your essay must be structured logically.
Your essay must have a title that includes the name of the chosen material.
Your essay must
Justify your choice of the subject of your essay as a major advance in materials science & engineering, and
Identify the properties of the material that made it suitable for the intended applications, and
Describe how the composition and structure of the material cause it to exhibit these properties, and
Describe how the processing strategy achieves the necessary chemical and physical microstructures, and
Suggest what researchers’ or manufacturers’ next steps should be.
Points (iii) and (iv) in the list above might require you to make educated (i.e. well-justified) suggestions of your own if you cannot find appropriate published material to cite.

Your essay must explicitly cite all original sources from which you glean information that you include. A minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 such sources should be used. No more than one Wikipedia article may be used.
Your essay must by type and converted into a PDF file. Also, each original source (whether online or printed) from which you glean information that appears in your essay must be converted into a corresponding PDF file. So, if your essay cites x original sources (5≤ x ≤10), then you will have x +1 PDF files. Note that maintaining an electronic “library” of cited materials is good research practice.
Your x +1 PDF files must be submitted together as uploaded attachments through “Assignments” tool in the ENGR 45 CatCourses site.
If you have a question about this assignment, you should bring them to an office hour.

Some additional advice based on lessons and experiences gleaned from previous years’ classes:

Read and follow all instructions carefully.
You have an unlimited number of submissions.
Essays and references submitted in any format other than PDF will not be accepted. Find out in good time how to make a PDF file from your word processed (e.g. .doc or.txt) documents and from any cited references that are not already in PDF format. PC users may need to download appropriate freeware from FileHippo.com
Your list of works cited should contain sufficient detail to enable a reader to easily track down to cited material.
Name your files sensibly, so that it is easy to identify which on contains your essay, and to distinguish between the various cited references.