Book excerpt: Materials Under Extreme Conditions: Recent Trends and Future Prospects analyzes the chemical transformation and decomposition of materials exposed to extreme conditions, such as high temperature, high pressure, hostile chemical environments, high radiation fields, high vacuum, high magnetic and electric fields, wear and abrasion related to chemical bonding, special crystallographic features, and microstructures. The materials covered in this work encompass oxides, non-oxides, alloys and intermetallics, glasses, and carbon-based materials. The book is written for researchers in academia and industry, and technologists in chemical engineering, materials chemistry, chemistry, and condensed matter physics. - Describes and analyzes the chemical transformation and decomposition of a wide range of materials exposed to extreme conditions - Brings together information currently scattered across the Internet or incoherently dispersed amongst journals and proceedings - Presents chapters on phenomena, materials synthesis, and processing, characterization and properties, and applications - Written by established researchers in the field