The study of materials science and engineering relates the properties of materials—chemical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical, optical—to their internal architecture or microstructure. In turn, structure is related to processing—solidification, thermal/mechanical treatment, vapor deposition etc.—and to the underlying thermodynamic "driving forces" and kinetics that cause changes in structure and hence in properties and behavior. Fundamental to the study are both qualitative and quantitative methods of microstructural analysis.