Annealing

Annealing may refer to:

• Annealing (metallurgy), a heat treatment that alters the microstructure of a material causing changes in properties such as strength and hardness
• Annealing (glass), heating a piece of glass to remove stress
• Annealing (biology), DNA or RNA pairing by hydrogen bonds to a complementary sequence, forming a double-stranded polynucleotide
• Simulated annealing, a technique for searching for a solution in a space otherwise too large for "ordinary" search methods to yield results
• Information annealing or knowledge annealing, a network-based information system in which all users of the system are permitted to change the system at will
• Quantum annealing, a method for finding solutions to combinatorial optimisation problems and ground states of glassy systems using quantum fluctuations
• Full annealing, the annealing process of ferrous alloys.