This issue of the MRS Bulletin follows up on the November issue's five articles on point defect phenomena in a wide range of materials with five more articles on point defects. The present articles emphasize the behavior of different phenomena in various materials—nonstoichiometric metal oxides, intermetallic compounds, type II superconductors and semiconductors—in terms of fundamental properties of point defects. Again, point defects is the unifying theme but the emphasis shifts to material behavior.

This issue begins with Marshall Stoneham's article on the roles theory plays in predicting and understanding material behavior in terms of point defects in the different classes of materials. The following article by Rüdiger Dieckmann discusses the relationships between point defect concentrations in nonstoichiometric metal oxides and diffusion, i.e., mass transport. Next, Georges Martin and Pascal Bellon review their new approach for analyzing the role played by antisite defects in nonequilibrium phase transitions in intermetallic compounds. Then, Donglu Shi focuses on the effect of point, line, and planar defects on three major properties of type II superconductors—the critical transition temperature, the upper critical magnetic field, and the critical current density. Finally, Lionel Kimerling shows how defect engineering is used to achieve a high degree of complexity in product fabrication and greater sophistication in product performance; he illustrates what he means by defect engineering with examples from basic processes used in electronic materials processing.