The following article is an edited transcript based on the plenary talk given by Alan I. Taub of General Motors Corp. on November 28, 2005, at the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston.

Fuel economy requirements, emissions regulations, and the push for energy independence are key factors driving the auto industry to increase vehicle efficiency. The main avenues to efficiency improvement are powertrain enhancements and mass reduction. This presentation details how General Motors is developing advanced propulsion systems and using lightweight materials to achieve greater vehicle efficiency. Taub, who is executive director of General Motors Research and Development, outlines GM's strategy for advancing propulsion technology, from improvements in the internalcombustion engine to hybridization to full vehicle electrification. He then describes the company's efforts to use lightweight materials such as aluminum and magnesium alloys, high-strength steels, and composites to reduce vehicle weight. Also highlighted is GM's success in employing novel materials in the development of advanced vehicle and powertrain systems to achieve additional efficiencies. One example is the application of smart materials, which enable new features and functions by way of mechamatronic solutions (the integration of smart materials with mechanical systems and electronics). Key technical hurdles that must be overcome to increase the use of these materials by the automotive industry are also discussed.

Holographic storage is considered a promising successor to currently available optical storage technologies. Enabling significant gains in both data transfer rates and storage densities, holographic storage and its capabilities have gained a great deal of recent attention.One of the primary challenges in the advancement of holographic storage has been the development of suitable recording materials.In this article, we provide a brief introduction to holographic storage and its potential advantages over current technologies, outline the requirements for recording materials, and survey candidate materials.We end by highlighting recent progress in photopolymer materials that has produced materials that satisfy the requirements for holographic storage and have enabled significant demonstrations of the viability of this technology.

Optical data storage has become the mainstream technology during the past two decades for distributing audio, video, and software content as well as for recording and archiving personal data. The continuous demand for ever-higher storage capacities and faster data transfer has led to the development of three disc format families using infrared (compact discs), red (digital versatile discs), and blue lasers (Blu-ray discs or high-density DVDs). Substrate materials used in optical discs need to possess a complex property profile with sufficient optical, rheological, mechanical, and processing characteristics to ensure cost-efficient replication, good read/write performance, and long-term media stability. Bisphenol-A polycarbonate (BPA-PC) is the substrate material of choice and has undergone several optimization cycles to always meet new format specifications.

Efficient and reliable particle separators and concentrators are needed to support a wide range of analytical functions including pathogen detection, sample preparation, high-throughput particle sorting, and biomedical diagnostics. The advent of lab-on-a-chip devices based on the phenomenon of dielectrophoresis offers advantages that can meet several of the challenges associated with cell sorting and detection. The majority of the devices presented in the scientific literature have used glass-based devices for these applications, but there has been recent activity that indicates that polymer-based devices can operate as effectively as their glass progenitors. Processing and operational advantages motivate the transition from glass and silicon to polymer microdevices: mechanical robustness, economy of scale, ease of thermoforming and mass manufacturing, and the availability of numerous innate chemical polymer compositions for tailoring performance. We present here a summary of the developments toward, and results obtained from, these polymeric dielectrophoretic devices in the selective trapping, concentration, and gated release of a range of biological organisms and particles.