This thesis reports a rare combination of experiment and theory on the role of geometry in materials science. It is built on two significant findings: that curvature can be used to guide crack paths in a predictive way, and that protected topological order can exist in amorphous materials. In each, the underlying geometry controls the elastic behavior of quasi-2D materials, enabling the control of crack propagation in elastic sheets and the control of unidirectional waves traveling at the boundary of metamaterials. The thesis examines the consequences of this geometric control in a range of materials spanning many orders of magnitude in length scale, from amorphous macroscopic networks and elastic continua to nanoscale lattices.

This book focuses on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy studies on novel interfacial phenomena in three typical two-dimensional material heterostructures: graphene/h-BN, twisted bilayer graphene, and topological insulator/high-temperature superconductors. Since the discovery of graphene, two-dimensional materials have proven to be quite a large "family". As an alternative to searching for other family members with distinct properties, the combination of two-dimensional (2D) materials to construct heterostructures offers a new platform for achieving new quantum phenomena, exploring new physics, and designing new quantum devices. By stacking different 2D materials together and utilizing interfacial periodical potential and order-parameter coupling, the resulting heterostructure's electronic properties can be tuned to achieve novel properties distinct from those of its constituent materials. This book offers a valuable reference guide for all researchers and students working in the area of condensed matter physics and materials science.

* Easy-to-understand guide to the subject * Written specifically for life scientists * Avoids complex mathematics Steering clear of quantum mechanics and product operators, "Pocket Guide to Biomolecular NMR" uses intuitive, concrete analogies to explain the theory required to understand NMR studies on the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules. For example, instead of explaining nuclear spin with angular momentum equations or Hamiltonians, the books describes nuclei as "bells" in a choir, ringing at specific frequencies depending on the atom type and their surrounding electromagnetic environment.This simple bell analogy, which is employed throughout the book, has never been used to explain NMR and makes it surprisingly easy to learn complex, bewildering NMR concepts, such as dipole-dipole coupling and CPMG pulse sequences. Other topics covered include the basics of multi-dimensional NMR, relaxation theory, and Model Free analysis. The small size and fast pace of "Pocket Guide to Biomolecular NMR" makes the book a perfect companion to traditional biophysics and biochemistry textbooks, but the book's unique perspective will provide even seasoned spectroscopists with new insights and handy "thought" short-cuts.

This book focuses on the topological fermion condensation quantum phase transition (FCQPT), a phenomenon that reveals the complex behavior of all strongly correlated Fermi systems, such as heavy fermion metals, quantum spin liquids, quasicrystals, and two-dimensional systems, considering these as a new state of matter. The book combines theoretical evaluations with arguments based on experimental grounds demonstrating that the entirety of very different strongly correlated Fermi systems demonstrates a universal behavior induced by FCQPT. In contrast to the conventional quantum phase transition, whose physics in the quantum critical region are dominated by thermal or quantum fluctuations and characterized by the absence of quasiparticles, the physics of a Fermi system near FCQPT are controlled by a system of quasiparticles resembling the Landau quasiparticles. The book discusses the modification of strongly correlated systems under the action of FCQPT, representing the "missing" instability, which paves the way for developing an entirely new approach to condensed matter theory; and presents this physics as a new method for studying many-body objects. Based on the authors' own theoretical investigations, as well as salient theoretical and experimental studies conducted by others, the book is well suited for both students and researchers in the field of condensed matter physics.

This book introduces the physics and chemistry of plastic scintillators (fluorescent polymers) that are able to emit light when exposed to ionizing radiation, discussing their chemical modification in the early 1950s and 1960s, as well as the renewed upsurge in interest in the 21st century. The book presents contributions from various researchers on broad aspects of plastic scintillators, from physics, chemistry, materials science and applications, covering topics such as the chemical nature of the polymer and/or the fluorophores, modification of the photophysical properties (decay time, emission wavelength) and loading of additives to make the material more sensitive to, e.g., fast neutrons, thermal neutrons or gamma rays. It also describes the benefits of recent technological advances for plastic scintillators, such as nanomaterials and quantum dots, which allow features that were previously not achievable with regular organic molecules or organometallics.

This book presents photoelectron spectroscopy as a valuable method for studying the electronic structures of various solid materials in the bulk state, on surfaces, and at buried interfaces. This second edition introduces the advanced technique of high-resolution and high-efficiency spin- and momentum-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy using a novel momentum microscope, enabling high-precision measurements down to a length scale of some tens of nanometers. The book also deals with fundamental concepts and approaches to applying this and other complementary techniques, such as inverse photoemission, photoelectron diffraction, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, as well as photon spectroscopy based on (soft) x-ray absorption and resonance inelastic (soft) x-ray scattering. This book is the ideal tool to expand readers' understanding of this marvelously versatile experimental method, as well as the electronic structures of metals and insulators.

This book presents a detailed look at experimental and computational techniques for accurate structure determination of free molecules. The most fundamental property of a molecule is its structure - it is a prerequisite for determining and understanding most other important properties of molecules. The determination of accurate structures is hampered by a myriad of factors, subjecting the collected data to non-negligible systematic errors. This book explains the origin of these errors and how to mitigate and even avoid them altogether. It features a detailed comparison of the different experimental and computation methods, explaining their interplay and the advantages of their combined use. Armed with this information, the reader will be able to choose the appropriate methods to determine - to a great degree of accuracy - the relevant molecular structure.

This book is devoted to advanced materials and perspective sensors, which is one of the most important problems in nanotechnology and security. This book is useful for researchers, scientist and graduate students in the fields of solid state physics, nanotechnology and security.

This thesis describes the application of the collinear resonance laser spectroscopy to sensitively measure the electromagnetic nuclear observables of the neutron-rich indium isotopes 115-131In. This entailed a systematic study of the efficiency of resonant ionization schemes to extract the hyperfine structure of the isotopes, the atomic charge exchange process and benchmarking of modern atomic calculations with a laser ablation ion source. This allowed determination of the root-mean-square nuclear charge radii, nuclear magnetic dipole moments, nuclear electric quadrupole moments and nuclear spins of the 113-131In isotopes with high accuracy. With a proton hole in the Z = 50 nuclear shell closure of tin and several nuclear isomer states, these measurements of the indium (Z = 49) isotope chain provided an efficient probe of the evolution of nuclear structure properties towards and at the doubly-magic nuclear shell closure of 132Sn (N = 82) - revealing unpredicted changes.

This book reviews the most recent developments of fluorescent imaging techniques for medicinal chemistry research and biomedical applications, including cell imaging, in vitro diagnosis and in vivo imaging. Fluorescent imaging techniques play an important role in basic research, drug discovery and clinical translation. They have great impact to many fields including chemical biology, cell biology, medical imaging, cancer diagnosis and treatment, pharmaceutical science, among others, and they have facilitated our understanding of diseases and helped to develop many novel powerful tools for imaging and treatment of diseases. This book will appeal to scientists from numerous fields such as chemistry, pharmaceutical science, biology, materials science, and medicine, and it will serve as a very useful and handy resource for readers with different levels of scientific knowledge, ranging from entry level to professional level.

Reviews in Plasmonics is a comprehensive collection of current trends and emerging hot topics in the field of Plasmonics and closely related disciplines. It summarizes the years progress in Plasmonics and its applications, with authoritative analytical reviews specialized enough to be attractive to professional researchers, yet also appealing to the wider audience of scientists in related disciplines of Plasmonics.

This book presents new approaches that offer a better characterization of the interrelationship between crystalline and amorphous phases. In recent years, the use of dielectric spectroscopy has significantly improved our understanding of crystallization. The combination of modern scattering methods, using either synchrotron light or neutrons and infrared spectroscopy with dielectrics, is now helping to reveal modifications of both crystalline and amorphous phases. In turn, this yields insights into the underlying physics of the crystallization process in various materials, e.g. polymers, liquid crystals and diverse liquids. The book offers an excellent introduction to a valuable application of dielectric spectroscopy, and a helpful guide for every scientist who wants to study crystallization processes by means of dielectric spectroscopy.

This book, a consecutive contribution to the series Challenges and Advances in Computational Chemistry and Physics, focuses on understanding the photoinduced processes in biological systems. Understanding and fine control of light fate in molecules is vital for the progress of society and environmental safety. Light induced changes of various physico-chemical and spectroscopic properties in nucleic acids and proteins is the basis of fundamental biological events such as vision, DNA photodamage or photosensing. The investigation of these processes is challenging to both theoretical and experimental studies. This volume encompasses the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics theory in several subfields, including: advanced computational methods for nucleic acids and proteins systems; dynamics, spectroscopic and physico-chemical properties of biological photoreceptors; DNA photodamage. This book is of interest to readers in both fundamental and application-oriented research by overviewing recent achievements in computational modeling of excited states in nucleic acids and proteins.

This book presents and discusses recent developments in the broad field of spectroscopy, providing the reader with an updated overview. The main objective is to introduce them to recent innovations and current trends in spectroscopy applied to molecules and materials. The book also brings together experimentalists and theoreticians to highlight the multidimensional aspects of spectroscopy and discuss the latest issues. Accordingly, it provides insights not only into the general goals of spectroscopy, but also into how the various spectroscopic techniques represent a toolbox that can be used to gain a more detailed understanding of molecular systems and complex chemical problems. Besides technical aspects, basic theoretical interpretations of spectroscopic results are also presented. The spectroscopy techniques discussed include UV-visible absorption spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, IR absorption spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and time-resolved spectroscopy. In turn, basic tools like lasers and theoretical modeling approaches are also presented. Lastly, applications for the characterization of fundamental properties of molecules (environmental aspects, biomolecules, pharmaceutical drugs, hazardous molecules, etc.) and materials (nanomaterials, nuclear chemistry materials, biomaterials, etc.) are discussed. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers from various branches of science, and presents new techniques that can be applied to their specific problems.

This book is devoted to the synthetic and physical chemistry of aromatic thiols and their closest derivatives, sulfides, sulfoxides, sulfones, including those substituted by various functional groups such as acyl and thioacyl, alkoxide, ester, hydroxyl and halogens. In some cases, for comparison, selenium and oxygen analogues are also detailed. The main focus of the book is on synthetic methods, both traditional and new, based on the use of transition metals as catalysts, as well as the reactivity of the compounds obtained. Its addition to the influence of conformational and electronic factors on spectral (NMR, IR, UV, NQR) and electrochemical characteristics of the compounds is presented. Finally, the book describes the application of aromatic thiols and their derivatives as drug precursors, high-tech materials, building blocks for organic synthesis, analytical reagents and additives for oils and fuels. It is a useful handbook for all those interested in organosulfur chemistry.

This thesis deals with the development and in-depth study of a new class of optoelectronic material platform comprising graphene and MoS_2, in which MoS_2 is used essentially to sensitize graphene and lead to unprecedently high gain and novel opto-electronic memory effects. The results presented here open up the possibility of designing a new class of photosensitive devices which can be utilized in various optoelectronic applications including biomedical sensing, astronomical sensing, optical communications, optical quantum information processing and in applications requiring low intensity photodetection and number resolved single photon detection.

This book describes the history of and recent developments in cobaltite and the spin-crossover (SC) phenomena. It offers readers an overview of essential research conducted on cobaltite and introduces them to the fundamentals of condensed matter physics research. The book consists of two parts. The first part reviews SC phenomena, covering the fundamental physics of SC phenomena and basic material properties of cobaltite. The second part focuses on recent topics in SC cobaltite, including the optical and dynamical features of cobaltite, thin material fabrication, and thermoelectric properties. The comprehensive coverage and clearly structured topics will especially appeal to newcomers to the field of state-of-the-art research on cobaltite and SC physics.

Designed to sit alongside more conventional established condensed matter physics textbooks, this compact volume offers a concise presentation of the principles of solid state theory, ideal for advanced students and researchers requiring an overview or a quick refresher on a specific topic. The book starts from the one-electron theory of solid state physics, moving through electron-electron interaction and many-body approximation schemes, to lattice oscillations and their interactions with electrons. Subsequent chapters discuss transport theory and optical properties, phase transitions and some properties of low-dimensional semiconductors. Throughout the text, mathematical proofs are often only sketched, and the final chapter of the book reviews some of the key concepts and formulae used in theoretical physics. Aimed primarily at graduate and advanced undergraduate students taking courses on condensed matter theory, the book serves as a study guide to reinforce concepts learned through conventional solid state texts. Researchers and lecturers will also find it a useful resource as a concise set of notes on fundamental topics.

Covering a wide-ranging facet of a "gold-standard" targeted mass spectrometry (MS) method for the consistent detection and accurate quantification of preselected proteins in complex biological matrices, Selected Reaction Monitoring Mass Spectrometry (SRM-MS) in Proteomics: A Comprehensive View describes: The knowledge-based development of highly efficient SRM methodology including assay workflow, selection of proteins, peptides, transitions and its validation, and quality assessment Available bioinformatic tools - for both pre-acquisition method development and post-MS acquisition data analysis and data repositories Various relative and absolute quantification techniques SRM-MS' widespread applications in biomarker development and in clinical studies, as well as in the analysis of various posttranslational modifications (PTMs) Current challenges and contemporary trends to overcome those difficulties In addition, it features the historical development of modern-day mass spectrometry with its vivid applications and also covers basic MS instrumentation, ionization techniques, and various proteomics approaches. Comprehensive discussion, extensive references at the end of each chapter, and the list of review articles in the bibliography offer invaluable resources for advanced readings. Researchers from the undergraduate to postgraduate level and beyond in both academic or industry settings studying and working on mass spectrometry and/or proteomics will benefit from this book.

This book provides an understandable review of SU(3) representations, SU(3) Wigner-Racah algebra and the SU(3) SO(3) integrity basis operators, which are often considered to be difficult and are avoided by most nuclear physicists. Explaining group algebras that apply to specific physical systems and discussing their physical applications, the book is a useful resource for researchers in nuclear physics. At the same time it helps experimentalists to interpret data on rotational nuclei by using SU(3) symmetry that appears in a variety of nuclear models, such as the shell model, pseudo-SU(3) model, proxy-SU(3) model, symplectic Sp(6, R) model, various interacting boson models, various interacting boson-fermion models, and cluster models. In addition to presenting the results from all these models, the book also describes a variety of statistical results that follow from the SU(3) symmetry.

This thesis reports advances in terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, relating to the development of new techniques and components that enhance the experimentalist's control over the terahertz polarisation state produced by photoconductive emitters. It describes how utilising the dynamic magnetoelectric response at THz frequencies, in the form of electromagnons, can probe material properties at a transition between two magnetically ordered phases. Additionally, preliminary investigations into the properties of materials exposed to extreme terahertz optical electric fields are reported. The work presented in this thesis may have immediate impacts on the study of anisotropic media at THz frequencies, with photoconductive emitters and detectors being the most commonly used components for commercially available terahertz spectroscopy and imaging systems, and by providing a new way to study the nature of magnetic phase transitions in multiferroics. In the longer term the increased understanding of multiferroics yielded by ultrafast spectroscopic methods, including terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, may help develop new magnetoelectric and multiferroic materials for applications such as spintronics.

This updated and revised edition of a classic work provides a summary of methods for numerical computation of high resolution conventional and scanning transmission electron microscope images. At the limits of resolution, image artifacts due to the instrument and the specimen interaction can complicate image interpretation. Image calculations can help the user to interpret and understand high resolution information in recorded electron micrographs. The book contains expanded sections on aberration correction, including a detailed discussion of higher order (multipole) aberrations and their effect on high resolution imaging, new imaging modes such as ABF (annular bright field), and the latest developments in parallel processing using GPUs (graphic processing units), as well as updated references. Beginning and experienced users at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level will find the book to be a unique and essential guide to the theory and methods of computation in electron microscopy.

This book provides easy-to-understand explanations to systematically and comprehensively describe the X-ray CT technologies, techniques, and skills used for industrial and scientific purposes. Included are many references along with photographs, figures, and equations prepared by the author. These features all facilitate the reader's gaining a deeper understanding of the topics being discussed. The book presents expertise not only on fundamentals but also about hardware, software, and analytical methods for the benefit of technical users. The book targets engineers, researchers, and students who are involved in research, development, design, and quality assurance in industry and academia.