At present, there is an increasing interest in the prediction of properties of classical and new materials such as substitutional alloys, their surfaces, and metallic or semiconductor multilayers. A detailed understanding based on a thus of the utmost importance for fu microscopic, parameter-free approach is ture developments in solid state physics and materials science. The interrela tion between electronic and structural properties at surfaces plays a key role for a microscopic understanding of phenomena as diverse as catalysis, corrosion, chemisorption and crystal growth. Remarkable progress has been made in the past 10-15 years in the understand ing of behavior of ideal crystals and their surfaces by relating their properties to the underlying electronic structure as determined from the first principles. Similar studies of complex systems like imperfect surfaces, interfaces, and mul tilayered structures seem to be accessible by now. Conventional band-structure methods, however, are of limited use because they require an excessive number of atoms per elementary cell, and are not able to account fully for e.g. substitu tional disorder and the true semiinfinite geometry of surfaces. Such problems can be solved more appropriately by Green function techniques and multiple scattering formalism."

Concepts of nonlinear physics are applied to an increasing number of research disciplines. With this volume, the editors offer a selection of articles on nonlinear topics in progress, ranging from physics and chemistry to biology and some applications of social science. The book covers quantum optics, electron crystallization, cellular or flow patterns in fluids and in granular media, biological systems, and the control of brain structures via neuronal excitation. Chemical patterns are looked at both in bulk solutions and on surfaces in heterogeneous systems. From regular structures, the authors turn to the more complex behavior in biology and physics, such as hydrodynamical turbulence, low-dimensional dynamics in solid-state physics, and gravity.

This comprehensive collection of lectures by leading experts in the field introduces and reviews all relevant computer simulation methods and their applications in condensed matter systems. Volume 1 is an in-depth introduction to a vast spectrum of computational techniques for statistical mechanical systems of condensed matter. Volume 2 is a collection of state-of-the-art surveys on numerical experiments carried out for a great number of systems.

In this thesis, the author introduces various bio-inspired smart nanochannel systems. A strategy for design and preparation of novel artificial responsive symmetric/asymmetric single nanochannel systems under various symmetric/asymmetric stimuli is presented for the first time. The author's research work utilizes ion track etching polymer nanochannels with different shapes as examples to demonstrate the feasibility of the design strategy for building novel artificial functional nanochannels using various symmetric/asymmetric physicochemical modifications. The development of these nanochannels and their potential applications is a burgeoning new area of research, and a number of exciting breakthroughs may be anticipated in the near future from the concepts and results reported in this thesis. Research into artificial functional nanochannels continues to drive new developments of various real-world applications, such as biosensors, energy conversion systems and nanofluidic devices. The work in this thesis has led to more than 15 publications in high-profile journals.

" Cluster Materials" is the fourth volume of the highly successful series " Advances in Metal and Semiconductor Clusters." In this volume the focus is on the properties of clusters which determine their potential applications as new materials. Metal and semiconductor clusters have been proposed as precursors for materials or as actual materials since the earliest days of cluster research. In the last few years, a variety of techniques have made it possible to produce clusters in sizes varying from a few atoms up to several thousand atoms. While some measurements are performed in the gas phase on non-isolated clusters, many cluster materials can now be isolated in macroscopic quantities and more convenient studies of their properties become possible.
In this volume the authors focus on measurement of optical, electronic, magnetic, chemical and mechanical properties of clusters or of cluster assemblies. All of these properties must fall into acceptable ranges of behaviour before useful materials composed of clusters can be put into practical applications. As evidenced by the various work described here, the realisation of practical products based on cluster materials seems to be approaching rapidly.

This book introduces recent theoretical developments concerning the dynamic behaviour of fracture. Readers learn how the recent development of molecular dynamics and other state-of-the-art methods can help to solve the important problem of fracture from the atomic level.

The operation of semiconductor devices depends upon the use of electrical potential barriers (such as gate depletion) in controlling the carrier densities (electrons and holes) and their transport. Although a successful device design is quite complicated and involves many aspects, the device engineering is mostly to devise a "best" device design by defIning optimal device structures and manipulating impurity profIles to obtain optimal control of the carrier flow through the device. This becomes increasingly diffIcult as the device scale becomes smaller and smaller. Since the introduction of integrated circuits, the number of individual transistors on a single chip has doubled approximately every three years. As the number of devices has grown, the critical dimension of the smallest feature, such as a gate length (which is related to the transport length defIning the channel), has consequently declined. The reduction of this design rule proceeds approximately by a factor of 1. 4 each generation, which means we will be using 0. 1-0. 15 ). lm rules for the 4 Gb chips a decade from now. If we continue this extrapolation, current technology will require 30 nm design rules, and a cell 3 2 size < 10 nm , for a 1Tb memory chip by the year 2020. New problems keep hindering the high-performance requirement. Well-known, but older, problems include hot carrier effects, short-channel effects, etc. A potential problem, which illustrates the need for quantum transport, is caused by impurity fluctuations.

Intended to provide an up-to-date overview of the field, this book is also likely to become a standard work of reference on the science of droplets. Beginning with the theoretical background important for droplet dynamics, it continues with a presentation of the various methods for generating single droplets and regular droplet systems. Also included is a detailed description of the experimental methods employed in droplet research. A special chapter is devoted to the various types of droplet interactions without phase transition. A separate chapter then treats many examples of the possible phase transition processes. The final part of the book gives a summary of important applications. With its comprehensive content, this book will be of interest to all scientists and lecturers concerned with two-phase flow, spray technology, heterogeneous combustion, and aerosol science.

This text provides a uniform and consistent approach to diversified problems encountered in the study of dynamical processes in condensed phase molecular systems. Given the broad interdisciplinary aspect of this subject, the book focuses on three themes: coverage of needed background material, in-depth introduction of methodologies, and analysis of several key applications. The uniform approach and common language used in all discussions help to develop general understanding and insight on condensed phases chemical dynamics. The applications discussed are among the most fundamental processes that underlie physical, chemical and biological phenomena in complex systems.
The first part of the book starts with a general review of basic mathematical and physical methods (Chapter 1) and a few introductory chapters on quantum dynamics (Chapter 2), interaction of radiation and matter (Chapter 3) and basic properties of solids (chapter 4) and liquids (Chapter 5). In the second part the text embarks on a broad coverage of the main methodological approaches. The central role of classical and quantum time correlation functions is emphasized in Chapter 6. The presentation of dynamical phenomena in complex systems as stochastic processes is discussed in Chapters 7 and 8. The basic theory of quantum relaxation phenomena is developed in Chapter 9, and carried on in Chapter 10 which introduces the density operator, its quantum evolution in Liouville space, and the concept of reduced equation of motions. The methodological part concludes with a discussion of linear response theory in Chapter 11, and of the spin-boson model in chapter 12. The third part of the book applies the methodologies introducedearlier to several fundamental processes that underlie much of the dynamical behaviour of condensed phase molecular systems. Vibrational relaxation and vibrational energy transfer (Chapter 13), Barrier crossing and diffusion controlled reactions (Chapter 14), solvation dynamics (Chapter 15), electron transfer in bulk solvents (Chapter 16) and at electrodes/electrolyte and metal/molecule/metal junctions (Chapter 17), and several processes pertaining to molecular spectroscopy in condensed phases (Chapter 18) are the main subjects discussed in this part.

This volume is a collection of lectures presented during the 2009 International School on High-pressure Crystal- graphy, which took place at the Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture, between June 4 and 14, 2009, in the very picturesque Sicilian town of Erice. st The 2009 school was the 41 course of the "International School of Cryst- lography" organized at the Majorana Center and was directed by Elena Figure 1. Audience, including local Boldyreva (Novosibirsk University) organizers (orange scarfs) and student and Przemyslaw Dera (University of participants during one of the lectures. Chicago). Unmatched support and excellent on-site organization was provided by the expert team consisting of Prof. Paola Spadon (Uniersity of Padova), Prof. Lodovico Riva di San Severino (University of Bologna), Elena Papinutto and Prof. John Irvin (University of California, San Franciso), aided by great team of young local organizers ("orange scarfs"). Major part of funding for the school was provided by a grant from the NATO Science for Peace and Security program, through which the 2009 Erice school was recognized as a NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI).

"Nanotechnology" is now very well known as one of the most important key technologies in science and industry. In the field of material science and engineering, nanoparticles should be unit materials, as well as atoms and molecules, to build ceramics, devices, catalysts, and machines, and the "nanoparticle technology" is thus attracting. This novel technology includes various methodologies for nanoparticles: preparation, surface-modification via chemical and/or physical treatments, immobilization and arrangement on supports or substrates, to achieve high performance for luminescence properties in light emitting devices, and high efficiency for catalytic and photocatalytic reactions in chemical synthesis, chemical decomposition, and artificial photosynthesis, etc. It should be needless to say that the preparation of nanoparticles, having precisely controlled particle size, size distribution, chemical composition, and surface properties, is essentially important to realize "true nanoparticle technology." This book, written by Dr. Dibyendu Ganguli and Dr. Munia Ganguli, deals with the preparation methodologies for inorganic nanoparticles using macro- and microemulsions as "microreactor." There are several differences between these two emulsions, in addition to water droplet size: thermodynamic stability, and fusion-redispersion dynamics of the droplets. The properties of the nanoparticles prepared in these emulsion systems are seriously influenced and controlled by the selection of dynamic and static conditions.

This second edition of a successful and highly-accessed monograph has been extended by more than 100 pages. It includes an enlarged coverage of applications for materials characterization and analysis. Also a more detailed description of strategies for determining free energies of ion transfer between miscible liquids is provided. This is now possible with a "third-phase strategy" which the authors explain from theoretical and practical points of view. The book is still the only one detailing strategies for solid state electroanalysis. It also features the specific potential of the techniques to use immobilized particles (for studies of solid materials) and of immobilized droplets of immiscible liquids for the purpose of studying the three-phase electrochemistry of these liquids. This also includes studies of ion transfer between aqueous and immiscible non-aqueous liquids. The bibliography of all published papers in this field of research has been expanded from 318 to now 444 references in this second edition. Not only are pertinent references provided at the end of each chapter, but the complete list of the cited literature is also offered as a separate chapter for easy reference.

Diluted magnetic semiconductors, or semimagnetic semiconductors, seemed for a while to be one of those research topics whose glory (i. e. , the period of most ext- sive research) belongedalready to the past. This particularlyapplied to "traditional" diluted magnetic semiconductors, i. e. , substitutional alloys of either II-VI or IV-VI semiconductors with transition metal ions. Fortunately, a discovery, in the beg- ning of the nineties [1,2], of ferromagnetic ordering in III-V DMSs with critical temperatures reaching 170 K has renewed and greatly intensi ed an interest in those materials. This was, at least partially, related to expectations that their Curie temperatures can be relatively easily brought to room temperature range through a clearly delineatedpath and,partially,due to the great successes, also commercial,of metallic version of spintronics, which earned its founders the Nobel Prize in 2007. The semiconductor version of spintronics has attracted researchers also because of hopes to engage it in efforts to construct quantum information processing devices. While these hopes and expectations are not fully realized yet, the effort is going on. As a goodexampleof recentachievements,new resultson quantumdotsconta- ing a single magnetic ion should be mentioned. A great progress has been achieved in studies of excitonic states in such quantum dots, so far limited to InAs/GaAs [3,4] and CdTe/ZnTe [5,6] material systems and to Manganese as the magnetic ion. Furthermore, in the II-VI QDs, rst results on the optical control of the Mn spin states havebeenexperimentallydemonstrated[7-9]andtheoreticallyanalyzed[10]; the studies of Mn spin dynamics and control in III-V QDs will certainly follow.

Pulse Generation and Detection: Terahertz Radiation from ElectroOptic Crystals (X.C. Zhang et al.). Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches for High Power Radiation (G.M. Loubriel). Broadband Electronic Systems and Components: Pulse Generation and Compression on a TravellingWave MMIC Schottky Diode Array (M. Dragoman et al.). Precursor of an UltraWideband Radar System (A.S. Podgorski). Antennas and Arrays: Impulse Radiating Antennas (C.E. Baum, E.G. Farr). WideBandwidth Radiation from Arrays of Endfire Tapered Slot Antennas (D.H. Schaubert). Pulse Propagation and Guidance: Ultrashort Pulse Response in Nonlinear Dispersive Media (R. Albanese et al.). Modulation and Noise in Soliton Pulse Trains (J.M. Arnold). Scattering Theory and Computation: Phase Error Control for FDTD Methods (P.G. Petropoulos). Signal Processing Techniques: Stable Pole Extraction from Scattering Data (S.U. Pillai, T.I. Shim). 49 additional articles. Index.

"This volume deals with the interaction of acoustic fields with bubbles in liquids, with emphasis on the principles of cavitation--the generation of bubbles in liquids by rapid changes, such as those introduced by ultrasound. When cavity bubbles implode they produce shock waves in the liquid. If cavitation is induced by turbulent flow, components can be damaged. These phenomena have important implications, particularly in underwater acoustics, one of the fastest growing fields in acoustics research. The Acoustic Bubble skillfully explains the physical processes involved in cavitation both by analogy and formulation, making the concepts accessible to those with a minimal background in mathematics. This book willbe of great interest to those engaged in research in a wide range of areas, from sonochemistry to the sensitization of explosives.

After an introduction by J.G. Bednorz, describing the discovery of high Tc superconductivity and its consequences, the book goes on to describe modern research, dealing with general problems, new materials and structures, phase separation, electronic homogeneities and related problems, and applications. Specific systems dealt with include the La-cuprates. the Bi-cuprates and the Y-cuprates and related compounds.

The occurrence of fractional statistics has been discovered in more and more quantum field theory models, including some of the most geometrical and canonical ones. In a remarkable case, the fractional quantum statistics of quasiparticles in the fractional quantized Hall effect (FQHE) contributes to the understanding of states found there. Very recent work has indicated that similar possibilities arise for two-dimensional films in certain states of liquid 3He. Perhaps most exciting, although quite speculative at this moment, are recent attempts to apply fractional statistics to spin systems, and specifically to the behaviour of the 2-dimensional copper oxide layers that seem to be critical to the phenomenon of high-temperature superconductivity. It has recently been shown that fractional statistics automatically implies superconductivity of a qualitatively new kind. This collection of reprints with comprehensive commentary will serve as a valuable reference for those interested in the subject but have found it difficult to acquire basic knowledge, or a coherent view of the whole, due to the scattered literature available at present.

Magnetic control of the properties and the flow of liquids is a challenging field for basic research and for applications. This book is meant to be both an introduction to, and a state-of-the-art review of, this topic. Written in the form of a set of lectures and tutorial reviews, the book addresses the synthesis and characterization of magnetic fluids, their hydrodynamical description and their rheological properties. The book closes with an account of magnetic drug targeting.

Several different models have recently been proposed to explain High Temperature Superconductivity. This book gives an authoritative and up-to-date review of two such proposals, namely the Hubbard and Anyon Models. This invaluable reference is a must for all physicists interested in the fast-paced revolutionary field of High Temperature Superconductivity.

Humans have been "manually" extracting patterns from data for centuries, but the increasing volume of data in modern times has called for more automatic approaches. Early methods of identifying patterns in data include Bayes' theorem (1700s) and Regression analysis (1800s). The proliferation, ubiquity and incre- ing power of computer technology has increased data collection and storage. As data sets have grown in size and complexity, direct hands-on data analysis has - creasingly been augmented with indirect, automatic data processing. Data mining has been developed as the tool for extracting hidden patterns from data, by using computing power and applying new techniques and methodologies for knowledge discovery. This has been aided by other discoveries in computer science, such as Neural networks, Clustering, Genetic algorithms (1950s), Decision trees (1960s) and Support vector machines (1980s). Data mining commonlyinvolves four classes of tasks: * Classi cation: Arranges the data into prede ned groups. For example, an e-mail program might attempt to classify an e-mail as legitimate or spam. Common algorithmsinclude Nearest neighbor,Naive Bayes classi er and Neural network. * Clustering: Is like classi cation but the groups are not prede ned, so the algorithm will try to group similar items together. * Regression: Attempts to nd a function which models the data with the least error. A common method is to use Genetic Programming. * Association rule learning: Searches for relationships between variables. For example, a supermarket might gather data of what each customer buys.

Laser-enabled measurements are valuable tools for the investigation of surfaces and interfaces or for the in situ investigation of interfacial processes including electrode processes. The understanding of the thermodynamics of solid/liquid surfaces is important for surface science and electrochemistry. In the first part of this book, the authors describe a range of techniques for investigating interfacial tension and surface stress, which is important for coatings, thin films, and fuel cells. The techniques covered comprise bending beam (bending plate, bending cantilever, wafer curvature) methods with different detection techniques. Special attention is given to methods using optical detection by laser beam deflection or interferometry. The second part is devoted to the techniques based on the detection of refractive index gradients in the solution. The refractive index changes could be related to concentration gradients (Probe Beam Deflection, PBD) or light-induced thermal gradients (Photothermal Deflection Spectroscopy, PDS). The application of the techniques to surface-confined and solution electrochemical systems is described. Subsequently, a comparison with others techniques able to monitor ion fluxes is performed.

NMR has made important contributions to our understanding of structure& #150; property relationships in polymers. This book provides an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of NMR, with applications of multidimensional NMR and the new solution and solid-state methods in polymer science. < B> NMR of Polymers< /B> is written by leading authorities for graduate students and professionals in academia and industry.< br> < br> Key Features< br> * Provides comprehensive overview of NMR in Polymer Science< br> * Covers multidimensional NMR< br> * Includes new solution and solid state methods< br> * Addresses chain conformation and dynamics

The dielectric microstructures act as ultrahigh Q factors optical cavities, which modify the spontaneous emission rates and alter the spatial distributions of the input and output radiation. The editors have selected leading scientists who have made seminal contributions in different aspects of optical processes in microcavities. Every attempt has been made to unify the underlying physics pertaining to microcavities of various shapes. This book begins with a chapter on the role of microcavity modes with additional chapters on how these microcavity modes affect the spontaneous and stimulated emission rates, enhance nonlinear optical processes, used in cavity-QED and chemical physics experiments, aid in single-molecule detection, influence the design of microdisk semiconductor lasers, and how deformed cavities can be treated with classical chaos theory.

Several different models have recently been proposed to explain High Temperature Superconductivity. This book gives an authoritative and up-to-date review of two such proposals, namely the Hubbard and Anyon Models. This invaluable reference is a must for all physicists interested in the fast-paced revolutionary field of High Temperature Superconductivity.

The physics of soft matter - materials such as elastomers, gels, foams and liquid crystals - is an area of intense interest and contemporary study. Moreover, soft matter plays a role in a wide variety of important processes and application. For example, gel swelling and dynamics are an essential part of many biological and individual processes, such as motility mechanisms in bacteria and the transport and absorption of drugs. Ferroelectrics, liquid crystals, and elastomers are being used to design ever faster switching devices. Experimental studies, such as scattering, optical and electron microscopy, have provided a great deal of detailed information on structures. But the integration of mathematical modeling and analysis with experimental approaches promises to greatly increase our understanding of structure-property relationships and constitutive equations. The workshop on Modeling of Soft Matter has taken such an integrated approach. It brought together researchers in applied and computational mathematical fields such as differential equations, dynamical systems, analysis, and fluid and solid mechanics, and scientists and engineers from a variety of disciplines relevant to soft matter physics. An important outcome of the workshop has been to identify beautiful and novel scientific problems arising in soft matter that are in need of mathematical modeling and appear amenable to it and so to set the stage for further research. This volume presents a collection of papers representing the key aspects of the topics discussed at depth in the course of the workshop.