New Patterns of Scientific Growth: How Research Expanded After the Invention of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and the Discovery of Buckminsterfullerenes Thomas Heinze and Richard Heidler Lehrstuhl Organisationssoziologie, Gaussstraße 20, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany. E-mail: {theinze,heidler}@uni-wuppertal.de Raphael Heiko Heiberger and Jan Riebling Lehrstuhl Soziologie II, Lichtenhaidestraße 11, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96045 Bamberg, Germany. E-mail: {raphael-heiko.heiberger,jan.riebling}@uni-bamberg.de This article describes patterns of scientific growth that emerge in response to major research accomplishments in instrumentation and the discovery of new matter. Using two Nobel Prize-winning contributions, the scan- ning tunneling microscope (STM) and the discovery of Buckminsterfullerenes (BUF), we examine the growth of follow-up research via citation networks at the author and subdiscipline level. A longitudinal network analysis suggests that structure, cohesiveness, and interdiscipli- narity vary considerably with the type of breakthrough and over time. Scientific progress appears to be multi- faceted, including not only theoretical advances but also the discovery of new instrumentation and new matter. In addition, we argue that scientific growth does not necessarily lead to the formation of new specialties or new subdisciplines. Rather, we observe the emergence of a research community formed at the intersection of subdisciplinary boundaries. Introduction This article analyzes the impact of scientific contribu- tions that were recognized as breakthroughs according to how they stimulated follow-up work both inside and outside their original disciplinary context. The first goal of our work is to better understand the scientific growth that originates from different types of scientific advances. While it is common practice to analyze disciplinary reconfigurations following major theoretical advances, our analysis includes often neglected types of scientific accomplishments: The development of a new research instrument and the discovery of new matter. Our second purpose is to investigate whether scientific growth following major research accomplishments leads to disciplinary reconfigurations other than subdisci- plinary specialization. While the history and sociology of science typically interpret scientific growth as a process of disciplinary specialization and differentiation, we explore whether this conventional interpretation holds for the devel- opment of new research instrumentation and the discovery of new matter. Conceptually, this article draws on two related arguments. First, there has been renewed attention to the question, what constitutes a major advance in research, and how such break- throughs can be properly operationalized and identified (Aksnes, 2003; Sternberg, 2003; Hollingsworth, 2004; Guetz- kow, Lamont, & Mallard, 2004; Heinze, Shapira, Senker, & Kuhlmann, 2007)? In this literature, there is a broad consensus that major scientific advances include not only new theories, but also new data or new approaches (Guetzkow et al., 2004), or new empirical phenomena and new instrumentation (Heinze et al., 2007). Major advances are often recognized by peers within a few years after their initial publication (Seglen, 1992; Aksnes, 2003), and they frequently receive major prizes (Zuck- ermann, 1977; Hollingsworth, 2004). The second argument debates whether scientific growth typically leads to specialization and differentiation. In this debate, the central role of experimental systems in the gen- eration of new knowledge has been pointed out (Hacking, 1983; Shapin & Schaffer, 1985; Heidelberger & Steinle, 1998; Meli 2006, Rheinberger, 1997, 2010). In particular, Rheinberger (1997, 2010) and Shinn and Jörges (2002) argue that the history and sociology of science have largely been written in the framework of a discipline-related science culture, and that the impacts of experimental systems and research instrumentation on the advancement of science Received March 8, 2012; revised May 10, 2012; accepted June 11, 2012 © 2013 ASIS&T • Published online 22 February 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/asi.22760 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 64(4):829–843, 2013