Overview

Six years passed by since the NATO ASI on "Liquid and Amorphous Metals" was held in Zwiesel, Germany, in September 1979. The present one is the second NATO School devoted to research on disordered condensed matter, mainly liquid and amorphous metals. This time the title contains the word "materials" to explicitely include those aspects of the glassy state of insulators either shared with metallic glasses - e.g. the glass tran- sition - or on the border line with metallic systems - e.g. the metal- non-metal transition. The long period which purposely elapsed between the two Institutes indi- cates the intention not to have "just another conference", but to review the state of affairs in the field with a somewhat more durable scope. This is especially important to help basic research to bridge towards applica- tions and to introduce young researchers in this field. In fact, while the understanding of these materials and their properties is a tremendous challenge for experimental and theoretical physicists, glassy substances offer an enormous potential in-the development of new materials for tech- nical applications. To this end, the Institute has brought together insiders and peers from allover the world to discuss basic principles and latest results and to help correlate future research effort. Another important aim was to intro- duce newcomers to the field.