Modern fracture mechanics considers phenomena at many levels, macro and micro; it is therefore inextricably linked to methods of theoretical and mathematical physics. This book introduces these sophisticated methods in a straightforward manner. The methods are applied to several important phenomena of solid state physics which impinge on fracture mechanics: adhesion, defect nucleation and growth, dislocation emission, sintering, the electron beam effect and fractal cracks. The book shows how the mathematical models for such processes may be set up, and how the equations so formulated may be solved and interpreted. The many open problems which are encountered will provide topics for MSc and PhD theses in fracture mechanics, and in theoretical and experimental physics. As a supplementary text, the book can be used in graduate level courses on fracture mechanics, solid matter physics, and mechanics of solids, or in a special course on the application of fracture mechanics methods in solid matter physics.

This book contains most of the contributions presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Nanowires, held at La Cristalera Residence Hall, Miraflores, Spain, from 23 through September 27, 1996. The workshop was co-directed by P. A. Serena and U. Landman. More than forty scientists from ten countries of Europe, the United States, and Japan attended this meeting and contributed with brilliant talks and stimulating discusions about their recent works. A total of thirty-three oral communications were given, covering the main part of topics related with the subject of the workshop. On one hand, a set of talks presented the theoretical basis of the conductance mechanisms in low dimensional systems, elaborated caIculations on the electronic structure and mechanical behavior of metallic nanowires, the role of defects and geometry in conductance, etc. On the other hand, from the experimental perspective, the contributions included the deeply study of the conductance quantization phenomenom, the analysis of conductance histograms, the study of the origin of the residual resistance, the presentation of different techniques of fabrication and manipulation of nanowires, the study of forces appearing in nanowires and their relation with the electronic conduction, etc. The motivation of the present workshop was to gather together scientists with differents ideas on these topics, to exchange points of view, establish the future lines in their research, and devise the role of nanowires in the future incoming nanoscale technologies. We hope that most of these points were successfully achieved.

The state-of-the-art of quantum transport and quantum kinetics in semiconductors, plus the latest applications, are covered in this monograph. Since the publishing of the first edition in 1996, the nonequilibrium Green function technique has been applied to a large number of new research topics, and the revised edition introduces the reader to many of these areas. This book is both a reference work for researchers and a self-tutorial for graduate students.

During thelastthreedecadesmanynewaswellasextendedclassesoforganic andinorganicmaterials, someofwhichbeingofhybridtype, havebeensynthe sized. Amongthemarethosethecontributorsofthisbookaredealingwith. In parallel to this, new technologies have been developed such as active matrix addressed liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCD), new types of sensors like ther mographic sheets employed in science, industry and medicine, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), SQUIDs etc. At the same time the techniques for characterizing both the materials and technological products have become very fast and highly precise. For example, today measuring a dielectric spec trum over a broadfrequency rangewith a high density of experimentalpoints per decade requires a few minutes time, sometimes just a few seconds, but before it would have taken weeks or even months. Nowadays one is able to create an enormous amount of data points but there is a real problem how to reach the real message, the truth? Toanswersuchquestions, aftersomeyearsofaverye?cientandsuccessful bilateral co-operation between our two research groups in Darmstadt and in Cracow, in the early 1990s an idea appeared to discuss all such intriguing problems with our colleagues and friends from many countries in the friendly atmosphere of the nice vacation resort of Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains. Therefore our ?rst workshop was organized there in 1993 and repeated at the same place in 1995 and 2000, interchanged with Darmstadt in 1998 and ?nally again in 2002. These kinds of meetings were well received as shown by the participation of the leading scientists in the ?eld of materials science and by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from all over the world."

Selected modern aspects of artificially layered structures and bulk materials involving antiferromagnetic long-range order are the main themes of this book. Special emphasis is laid on the prototypical behavior of Ising-type model systems. They play a crucial role in the field of statistical physics and, in addition, contribute to the basic understanding of the exchange bias phenomenon in MBE-grown magnetic heterosystems. Throughout the book, particular attention is given to the interplay between experimental results and their theoretical description, ranging from the famous Lee-Yang theory of phase transitions to novel mechanisms of exchange bias.

This volume offers an overview of the growth of shaped crystals (oxides, fluorides, etc.) by the micro-pulling-down technique. Both melt and solution (flux) growth are considered. The advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed in detail and compared with related crystal-growth processes. The authors attempt to give a practical introduction to this technique, thereby also explaining how its application can help to solve problems commonly encountered in other melt-growth methods.

The IFIP World Computer Congress (WCC) is one of the most important conferences in the area of computer science and a number of related Human and Social Science disciplines at the worldwide level and it has a federated structure, which takes into account the rapidly growing and expanding interests in this area. Human-Computer Interaction is now a mature and still dynamically evolving part of this area, which is represented in IFIP by the Technical Committee 13 on HCI. We are convinced that in this edition of WCC, which takes place for the first time in Italy, it will be interesting and useful to have a Symposium on Human- Computer Interaction in order to present and discuss a number of contributions in this field. There has been increasing awareness among designers of interactive systems of the importance of designing for usability, but we are still far from having products that are really usable, and usability can mean different things depending on the application domain. We are all aware that too many users of current technology feel often frustrated because computer systems are not compatible with their abilities and needs with existing work practices. As designers of tomorrow technology, we have the responsibility of creating computer artefacts that would permit better user experience with the various computing devices, so that users may enjoy more satisfying experiences with information and communications technologies.

This book presents written versions of selected invited lectures from the spring meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festkorperphysik of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft which was held from 27 to 31 March 2006 in Dresden, Germany. Many topical talks given at the numerous symposia are included. Most of these were organized collaboratively by several of the divisions of the Arbeitskreis. The book presents, to some extent, the status of the field of solid-state physics in 2006 not only in Germany but also internationally."

The NMR probe has yielded a panorama of data on the static and dynamic magnetic properties of high-Tc materials. This volume aims to provide a comprehensive exposition of the various facets of the technique itself and to apply those results to the task of creating straightforward physical meaning for the elements of the available data. While some aspects of the underlying theory remain mysterious, this book renders nearly every available measurement understandable.

This book provides an attempt to convey the colorful facets of condensed matter systems with reduced dimensionality. Some of the specific features predicted for interacting one-dimensional electron systems, such as charge- and spin-density waves, have been observed in many quasi-one-dimensional materials. The two-dimensional world is even richer: besides d-wave superconductivity and the Quantum Hall Effect - perhaps the most spectacular phases explored during the last two decades - many collective charge and spin states have captured the interest of researchers, such as charge stripes or spontaneously generated circulating currents.

Recent years have witnessed important progress in material preparation, measurement techniques and theoretical methods. Today larger and better samples, higher flux for neutron beams, advanced light sources, better resolution in electron spectroscopy, new computational algorithms, and the development of field-theoretical approaches allow an in-depth analysis of the complex many-body behaviour of low-dimensional materials. The epoch when simple mean-field arguments were sufficient for describing the gross features observed experimentally is definitely over.

The Editors' aim is to thoroughly explain a number of selected topics: the application of dynamical probes, such as neutron scattering, optical absorption and photoemission, as well as transport studies, both electrical and thermal. Some of the more theoretical chapters are directly relevant for experiments, such as optical spectroscopy, transport in one-dimensional models, and the phenomenology of charge inhomogeneities in layered materials, while others discuss more general topics and methods, for example the concept of a Luttinger liquid and bosonization, or duality transformations, both promising tools for treating strongly interacting many-body systems.

This series presents critical reviews of the present and future trends in polymer and biopolymer science including chemistry, physical chemistry, physics and materials science. It is addressed to all scientists at universities and in industry who wish to keep abreast of advances in the topics covered.

Impact Factor Ranking: Always number one in Polymer Science. More information as well as the electronic version of the whole content available at: www.springerlink.com

Over ?fteen years ago, because of the tremendous increase in the power and utility of computer simulations, The University of Georgia formed the ?rst institutional unit devoted to the use of simulations in research and teaching: The Center for Simulational Physics. As the international simulations c- munityexpandedfurther, wesensedaneedforameetingplaceforbothex- riencedsimulatorsandneophytestodiscussnewtechniquesandrecentresults in an environment which promoted lively discussion. As a consequence, the Center for Simulational Physics established an annual workshop on Recent DevelopmentsinComputerSimulationStudiesinCondensedMatterPhysics. This year's workshop was the seventeenth in this series, and the continued interest shown by the scienti?c community demonstrates quite clearly the useful purpose that these meetings have served. The latest workshop was held at The University of Georgia, February 16-20, 2004, and these proce- ings provide a "status report" on a number of important topics. This volume is published with the goal of timely dissemination of the material to a wider audience. We wish to o?er a special thanks to IBM and to SGI for partial support of this year's workshop. This volume contains both invited papers and contributed presentations on problems in both classical and quantum condensed matter physics. We hope that each reader will bene't from specialized results as well as pro't from exposure to new algorithms, methods of analysis, and conceptual dev- opments.

This volume presents the foundations of carbon nanotube science, reviewing recent developments and prospects for practical application. Each chapter summarizes relevant concepts from physics, chemistry or materials science, followed by detailed reports on topics including polymorphism and mircostructure of carbon; synthesis and growth; structural analysis by electron microscopy; spectroscopic methods; electronic structure; transport; mechanical and surface properties of nanotubes and composites.

The advent of new neutron facilities and the improvement of existing sources and instruments world wide supply the biological community with many new opportunities in the areas of structural biology and biological physics. The present volume offers a clear description of the various neutron-scattering techniques currently being used to answer biologically relevant questions. Their utility is illustrated through examples by some of the leading researchers in the field of neutron scattering. This volume will be a reference for researchers and a step-by-step guide for young scientists entering the field and the advanced graduate student.

The 2008 Spring Meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festk rperphysik was held in Berlin, Germany, between February 24 and February 29, 2008 in conjunction with the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The 2008 meeting was the largest physics meeting in Europe and among the largest physics meetings in the world in 2008.

One of the key problems of failure-free operation of machinery is prevention of corrosion. The global scale of modern production makes this problem even more critical. At the beginning of the 21st century industrial contami- tion and the corrosion-active nature of the environment reached a level such that corrosive damage of materials became commensurate with their prod- tion volume and expenditure on anticorrosion protection of machines became comparable with investments in basic production. Anticorrosion techniques changed from being an auxiliary service to industrial enterprises into a dev- oping, scienti?cally intensive and generously ?nanced branch of production. Polymers occupy a very speci?c place amongst anticorrosion techniques. Polymers combine good chemical resistance with impermeability to di?- ent media and unusual deformation characteristics. The main principle of their application as anticorrosion means is the creation of a tight barrier that insulates metal machine parts or constructions from corrosion agents. The advantages of polymers allow the creation of such a barrier at minimal cost, providingprotectionoftheworkingmachinesfromcorrosion, combining their manufacture with preservation and decreasing the cost of anticorrosion. This is one of the main reasons why world production of polymer materials increased by almost 50% in the past decad

Voltage-sensitive ion channels are macromolecules embedded in the membranes of nerve and muscle fibers of animals. Despite decades of intensive research under the traditional approach of gated structural pores, the relation between the structure of these molecules and their function remains enigmatic. This book examines physically oriented approaches not covered in other ion-channel books, and it develops a new physics-based approach to the problem of molecular excitability.

Time-Resolved Spectroscopy in Complex Liquids is intended to introduce the experimental researchers to state-of-the-art techniques in the study of the dynamics of complex liquids. The contributors concentrate on time-resolved optical spectroscopy, which recently produced many relevant results and new information about complex liquids. This is an emerging topic of soft-matter science and this book provides the most up-to-date account of new development.

From materials science to integrated circuit development, much of modern technology is moving from the microscale toward the nanoscale. This book focuses on the fundamental physics underlying innovative techniques for analyzing surfaces and near-surfaces. New analytical techniques have emerged to meet these technological requirements, all based on a few processes that govern the interactions of particles and radiation with matter. This book addresses the fundamentals and application of these processes, from thin films to field effect transistors.

The scope of this book is to identify and emphasize the successful link between computational materials modeling as a simulation and design tool and its synergistic application to experimental research and alloy development. The book provides a more balanced perspective of the role that computational modeling can play in every day research and development efforts. Each chapter describes one or more particular computational tool and how they are best used.

Magnetism and Structure in Functional Materials addresses three distinct but related topics: (i) magnetoelastic materials such as magnetic martensites and magnetic shape memory alloys, (ii) the magnetocaloric effect related to magnetostructural transitions, and (iii) colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) and related manganites. The goal is to identify common underlying principles in these classes of materials that are relevant for optimizing various functionalities. The emergence of apparently different magnetic/structural phenomena in disparate classes of materials clearly points to a need for common concepts in order to achieve a broader understanding of the interplay between magnetism and structure in this general class of new functional materials exhibiting ever more complex microstructure and function. The topic is interdisciplinary in nature and the contributors correspondingly include physicists, materials scientists and engineers. Likewise the book will appeal to scientists from all these areas.

This book provides course material in theoretical physics intended for undergraduate and graduate students specializing in condensed matter. The book derives from teaching activity, offering readable and mathematical treatments explained in sufficient detail to be followed easily. The main emphasis is always on the physical meaning and applicability of the results. Many examples are provided for illustration; these also serve as worked problems.

Discussion extends to atomic physics, relativistic quantum mechanics, elementary QED, electron spectroscopy, nonlinear optics, and various aspects of the many-body problem. Methods such as group representation theory, Green 's functions, the Keldysh formalism and recursion techniques were also imparted.

This book has its origins in courses taught by the author to various und- graduate and graduate students at the Indian Institute of Technology, K- pur, India. The diversity of inorganic chemistry and its impact on polymer chemistry has been profound. This subject matter has grown considerably in the last decade and the need to present it in a coherent manner to young minds is a pedagogic challenge. The aim of this book is to present to the students an introduction to the developments in Inorganic and - ganometallic polymers. This book is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 provides a general overview on the challenges of Inorganic polymer synthesis. This is f- lowed by a survey of organic polymers and also includes some basic f- tures of polymers. Chapters 3-8 deal with prominent families of inorganic and organometallic polymers. Although the target group of this book is the undergraduate and graduate students of chemistry, chemical engineering and materials science it is also hoped that chemists and related scientists in industry would find this book useful. I am extremely thankful to my wife Sudha who not only encouraged me throughout but also drew all the Figures and Schemes of this book. I also thank my children Adithya and Aarathi for their constant concern on the progress of this book. I express my acknowledgment to the editorial team of Springer-Verlag for their cooperation.

This book introduces the basic theoretical concepts required for the analysis of the optical response of semiconductor systems in the coherent regime. It is the most instructive textbook on the theory and optical effects of semiconductors. The entire presentation is based on a one-dimensional tight-binding model. Starting with discrete-level systems, increasing complexity is added gradually to the model by including band-structure and many-particle interaction. Various linear and nonlinear optical spectra and temporal phenomena are studied. The analysis of many-body effects in nonlinear optical phenomena covers a major part of the book.

The main objective of this book is to cover the basic understanding of thermal conduction mechanisms in various high thermal conductivity materials including diamond, cubic boron nitride, and also the latest material like carbon nanotubes.

The book is intended as a good reference book for scientists and engineers involved in addressing thermal management issues in a broad spectrum of industries.

Leading researchers from industry and academic institutions who are well known in their areas of expertise have contributed a chapter in the field of their interest.