This book presents a collection of selected reviews from PLMMP 2018 that address modern problems in the fields of liquids, solutions and confined systems, critical phenomena, as well as colloidal and biological systems. The papers focus on state-of-the-art developments in the contemporary physics of liquid matter, and are divided into four parts: (i) water and water systems, (ii) physical-chemical properties of liquid systems, (iii) aggregation in liquid systems, and (iv) biological aspects of liquid systems, irradiation influences on liquid systems. Taken together, they cover the latest developments in the broader field of liquid states, including interdisciplinary problems.

This book discusses the synthesis of chitosan-based solid foams using foam templating. Solid foams with pore sizes between a few micrometres and a few millimetres are widely used in a range of established and emerging applications, including filtration, catalysis, sound and thermal insulation, human protection, and tissue engineering. They are lightweight with large surface-to-volume ratios, and have excellent mechanical, acoustic, and thermal properties. However, most foaming processes are extremely complex, and there remains a lack of sound scientific understanding of-and therefore control over-the parameters that determine the properties of the material. One route towards tailor-made solid foams is liquid foam templating, where the liquid foam is generated first (with the desired structure) before being solidified into a solid foam with the desired structure. This book describes how liquid foam templating can be used to synthesise monodisperse solid foams as well as solid foams with a tuneable polydispersity.

This thesis offers a fascinating journey through various non-perturbative aspects of Conformal Theories, in particular focusing on the Conformal Bootstrap Programme and its extensions to theories with various degrees of symmetry. Because of the preeminent role of Conformal Theories in Nature, as well as the great generality of the results here obtained, this analysis directly applies to many different areas of research. The content of this thesis is certainly relevant for the physics community as a whole and this relevance is well motivated and discussed along the various chapters of this work. The work is self-contained and starts with an original introduction to conformal theories, defects in such theories and how they lead to constraints on data and an extension of the bootstrap programme. This situation is often realized by critical systems with impurities, topological insulators, or - in the high-energy context - by Wilson and 't Hooft operators. The thesis continues with original research results of the author, including supersymmetric extensions. These results may be relevant non only in the high energy physics context - where supersymmetry is required for the theory to be consistent - but also for condensed matter systems that enjoy supersymmetry emergence at long distances.

This tutorial book offers an in-depth overview of the fundamental principles of micro/nano technologies and devices related to sensing, actuation and diagnosis in fluidics and biosystems. Research in the MEMS/NEMS and lab-on-chip fields has seen rapid growth in both academic and industrial domains, as these biodevices and systems are increasingly replacing traditional large size diagnostic tools. This book is unique in describing not only the devices and technologies but also the basic principles of their operation. The comprehensive description of the fabrication, packaging and principles of micro/nano biosystems presented in this book offers guidance for researchers designing and implementing these biosystems across diverse fields including medical, pharmaceutical and biological sciences. The book provides a detailed overview of the fundamental mechanical, optical, electrical and magnetic principles involved, together with the technologies required for the design, fabrication and characterization of micro/nano fluidic systems and bio-devices. Written by a collaborative team from France and Korea, the book is suitable for academics, researchers, advanced level students and industrial manufacturers.

This thesis is a contribution at the intersection of a number of active fields in theoretical and experimental condensed matter, particularly those concerned with disordered systems, integrable models, lattice gauge theories, and non-equilibrium quantum dynamics. It contributes an important new facet to our understanding of relaxation in isolated quantum systems by conclusively demonstrating localization without disorder for the first time, answering a long-standing question in this field. This is achieved by introducing a family of models - intimately related to paradigmatic condensed matter models - and studying their non-equilibrium dynamics through a combination of exact analytical mappings and an array of numerical techniques. This thesis also makes contributions relevant to the theory of quantum chaotic behaviour by calculating novel, and often intractable, entanglement measures and out-of-time-ordered correlators. A concrete and feasible proposal is also made for the experimental realization and dynamical study of the family of models, based on currently available technologies.

This book provides a thorough overview of transport phenomena in complex fluids, based on the latest research results and the newest methods for their analytical prediction and numerical simulation. The respective chapters cover several topics, including: a description of the structural features of the most common complex fluids (polymer and surfactant solutions, colloidal suspensions); an introduction to the most common non-Newtonian constitutive models and their relationship with the fluid microstructure; a detailed overview of the experimental methods used to characterise the thermophysical properties, bulk rheology, and surface properties of complex fluids; a comprehensive introduction to heat, mass, and momentum transport, and to hydrodynamic instabilities in complex fluids; and an introduction to state-of-the-art numerical methods used to simulate complex fluid flows, with a focus on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and the Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) techniques. Subsequent chapters provide in-depth descriptions of phenomena such as thermal convection, elastic turbulence, mixing of complex fluids, thermophoresis, sedimentation, and non-Newtonian drops and sprays. The book addresses research scientists and professionals, engineers, R&D managers and graduate students in the fields of engineering, chemistry, biology, medicine, and the applied and fundamental sciences.

This open access book, published in the Soft and Biological Matter series, presents an introduction to selected research topics in the broad field of flowing matter, including the dynamics of fluids with a complex internal structure -from nematic fluids to soft glasses- as well as active matter and turbulent phenomena. Flowing matter is a subject at the crossroads between physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, biology and earth sciences, and relies on a multidisciplinary approach to describe the emergence of the macroscopic behaviours in a system from the coordinated dynamics of its microscopic constituents. Depending on the microscopic interactions, an assembly of molecules or of mesoscopic particles can flow like a simple Newtonian fluid, deform elastically like a solid or behave in a complex manner. When the internal constituents are active, as for biological entities, one generally observes complex large-scale collective motions. Phenomenology is further complicated by the invariable tendency of fluids to display chaos at the large scales or when stirred strongly enough. This volume presents several research topics that address these phenomena encompassing the traditional micro-, meso-, and macro-scales descriptions, and contributes to our understanding of the fundamentals of flowing matter. This book is the legacy of the COST Action MP1305 "Flowing Matter".

This book explores the diverse types of Schroedinger equations that appear in nonlinear systems in general, with a specific focus on nonlinear transmission networks and Bose-Einstein Condensates. In the context of nonlinear transmission networks, it employs various methods to rigorously model the phenomena of modulated matter-wave propagation in the network, leading to nonlinear Schroedinger (NLS) equations. Modeling these phenomena is largely based on the reductive perturbation method, and the derived NLS equations are then used to methodically investigate the dynamics of matter-wave solitons in the network. In the context of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), the book analyzes the dynamical properties of NLS equations with the external potential of different types, which govern the dynamics of modulated matter-waves in BECs with either two-body interactions or both two- and three-body interatomic interactions. It also discusses the method of investigating both the well-posedness and the ill-posedness of the boundary problem for linear and nonlinear Schroedinger equations and presents new results. Using simple examples, it then illustrates the results on the boundary problems. For both nonlinear transmission networks and Bose-Einstein condensates, the results obtained are supplemented by numerical calculations and presented as figures.

Random fields are a necessity when formulating stochastic continuum theories. In this book, a theory of random piezoelectric and piezomagnetic materials is developed. First, elements of the continuum mechanics of electromagnetic solids are presented. Then the relevant linear governing equations are introduced, written in terms of either a displacement approach or a stress approach, along with linear variational principles. On this basis, a statistical description of second-order (statistically) homogeneous and isotropic rank-3 tensor-valued random fields is given. With a group-theoretic foundation, correlation functions and their spectral counterparts are obtained in terms of stochastic integrals with respect to certain random measures for the fields that belong to orthotropic, tetragonal, and cubic crystal systems. The target audience will primarily comprise researchers and graduate students in theoretical mechanics, statistical physics, and probability.

This book discusses the tribological, rheological and optical properties of liquid-crystal nanomaterials as well as lubricant media. It also describes the formation of liquid-crystal materials and the application of cholesteric liquid-crystal compounds in technical friction units and in human and animal joints. Further, it shows the connection between the tribological and other physical properties of liquid-crystal cholesterol compounds and develops a lubricity conceptual model of cholesteric-nematic, liquid-crystalline nanostructures on the basis of physical and energetic interpretations. This general model is valid for all surfaces and friction pairs, including biopolymers, and could lead to applications of cholesteric liquid-crystalline nanomaterials in different friction units and tribosystems as well as in the treatment of joint diseases.

This book presents an overview of fundamental aspects of surface-based biosensors and techniques for enhancing their detection sensitivity and speed. It focuses on rapid detection using miniaturized sensors and describes the physical principles of nanoscale transducers, surface modifications, microfluidics and reaction engineering, diffusion and kinetics. A key challenge in the field of bioanalytical sensors is the rapid delivery of target biomolecules to the sensing surface. While various nanostructures have shown great promise in sensitive detection, diffusion-limited binding of analyte molecules remains a fundamental problem. Recently, many researchers have put forward novel schemes to overcome this challenge, such as nanopore channels, electrokinetics, and dielectrophoresis, to name but a few. This book provides the readers an up-to-date account on these technological advances.

This book presents the topology optimization theory for laminar flows with low and moderate Reynolds numbers, based on the density method and level-set method, respectively. The density-method-based theory offers efficient convergence, while the level-set-method-based theory can provide anaccurate mathematical expression of the structural boundary. Unsteady, body-force-driven and two-phase properties are basic characteristics of the laminar flows. The book discusses these properties, which are typical of microfluidics and one of the research hotspots in the area of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), providing an efficient inverse design approach for microfluidic structures. To demonstrate the applications of this topology optimization theory in the context of microfluidics, it also investigates inverse design for the micromixer, microvalve and micropump, which are key elements in lab-on-chip devices.

This textbook explores the theory of Cosserat continuum mechanics, and covers fundamental tools, general laws and major models, as well as applications to the mechanics of granular media. While classical continuum mechanics is based on the axiom that the stress tensor is symmetric, theories such as that expressed in the seminal work of the brothers Eugene and Francois Cosserat are characterized by a non-symmetric stress tensor. The use of von Mises motor mechanics is introduced, for the compact mathematical description of the mechanics and statics of Cosserat continua, as the Cosserat continuum is a manifold of oriented "rigid particles" with 3 dofs of displacement and 3 dofs of rotation, rather than a manifold of points with 3 dofs of displacement. Here, the analysis is restricted to infinitesimal particle displacements and rotations. This book is intended as a valuable supplement to standard Continuum Mechanics courses, and graduate students as well as researchers in mechanics and applied mathematics will benefit from its self-contained text, which is enriched by numerous examples and exercises.

This book introduces and discusses both the fundamental aspects and the measurability of applications of time-symmetric kinetic quantities, outlining the features that constitute the non-dissipative branch of non-equilibrium physics. These specific features of non-equilibrium dynamics have largely been ignored in standard statistical mechanics texts. This introductory-level book offers novel material that does not take the traditional line of extending standard thermodynamics to the irreversible domain. It shows that although stationary dissipation is essentially equivalent with steady non-equilibrium and ubiquitous in complex phenomena, non-equilibrium is not determined solely by the time-antisymmetric sector of energy-entropy considerations. While this should not be very surprising, this book provides timely, simple reminders of the role of time-symmetric and kinetic aspects in the construction of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.

This book presents a detailed overview of the design, formatting, application, and development of microfluidic chips in the context of cell biology research, enumerating each element involved in microfluidics-based cell analysis, discussing its history, status quo, and future prospects, It also offers an extensive review of the research completed in the past decade, including numerous color figures. The individual chapters are based on the respective authors' studies and experiences, providing tips from the frontline to help researchers overcome bottlenecks in their own work. It highlights a number of cutting-edge techniques, such as 3D cell culture, microfluidic droplet technique, and microfluidic chip-mass spectrometry interfaces, offering a first-hand impression of the latest trends in the field and suggesting new research directions. Serving as both an elementary introduction and advanced guidebook, the book interests and inspires scholars and students who are currently studying microfluidics-based cell analysis methods as well as those who wish to do so.

This thesis both broadens and deepens our understanding of the Brownian world. It addresses new problems in diffusion theory that have recently attracted considerable attention, both from the side of nanotechnology and from the viewpoint of pure academic research. The author focusses on the difussion of interacting particles in restricted geometries and under externally controlled forces. These geometries serve, for example, to model ion transport through narrow channels in cell membranes or a Brownian particle diffusing in an optical trap, now a paradigm for both theory and experiment. The work is exceptional in obtaining explicit analytically formulated answers to such realistic, experimentally relevant questions. At the same time, with its detailed exposition of the problems and a complete set of references, it presents a clear and broadly accessible introduction to the domain. Many of the problem settings and the corresponding exact asymptotic laws are completely new in diffusion theory.

Magnetic perovskite with multi functional properties (magneto-resistive, magneto-dielectric, multiferroics, spintronics, etc.) have attracted increasing attention due to their possible applications towards storage materials and intriguing fundamental Physics. Despite the numerous investigations on multi functional materials in the past few years, a very few magnetic perovskites have been known to realize as ferromagnetic-insulators. In perovskites centred transition metal oxides strong interplay between lattice, charge, spin and/or orbital degrees of freedom provide a fantastic playground to tune their physical properties. The main purpose of this book is to introduce the phenomenon and physics of complex magnetism (phase separation, spin glass, frustrations, etc.) in perovskite manganites and cobaltites via an experimental approach. The book is organized into four chapters; Chap. 1 gives a brief introduction of various interesting phenomena in magnetic perovskites. Chapter 2 describes the results of the investigations on electronic phase separation and glassy ferromagnetism of the hole-doped perovskite manganites and cobaltites. Ordered and disordered effects and related aspects in hole-doped perovskite cobaltites are described in Chap. 3. Finally, in Chap. 4 the bismuth based magnetic perovskite is discussed.

This book focuses on droplets and sprays and their applications. It discusses how droplet level transport is central to a multitude of applications and how droplet level manipulation and control can enhance the efficiency and design of multiphase systems. Droplets and sprays are ubiquitous in a variety of multiphase and multiscale applications in surface patterning, oil recovery, combustion, atomization, spray drying, thermal barrier coating, renewable energy, and electronic cooling, to name but a few. This book provides two levels of details pertaining to such applications. Each chapter delves into a specific application and provides not only an overview but also detailed physical insights into the application mechanism from the point of view of droplets and sprays. All chapters provide a mix of cutting-edge applications, new diagnostic techniques and modern computational methodologies, as well as the fundamental physical mechanism involved in each application. Taken together, the chapters provide a translational perspective on these applications, from basic transport processes to optimization, and from design to implementation using droplets or sprays as fundamental building blocks. Given its breadth of coverage, the book will be of interest to students, researchers, and industry professionals alike.

This book presents the most important advances in the class of topological materials and discusses the topological characterization, modeling and metrology of materials. Further, it addresses currently emerging characterization techniques such as optical and acoustic, vibrational spectroscopy (Brillouin, infrared, Raman), electronic, magnetic, fluorescence correlation imaging, laser lithography, small angle X-ray and neutron scattering and other techniques, including site-selective nanoprobes. The book analyzes the topological aspects to identify and quantify these effects in terms of topology metrics. The topological materials are ubiquitous and range from (i) de novo nanoscale allotropes of carbons in various forms such as nanotubes, nanorings, nanohorns, nanowalls, peapods, graphene, etc. to (ii) metallo-organic frameworks, (iii) helical gold nanotubes, (iv) Moebius conjugated polymers, (v) block co-polymers, (vi) supramolecular assemblies, to (vii) a variety of biological and soft-matter systems, e.g. foams and cellular materials, vesicles of different shapes and genera, biomimetic membranes, and filaments, (viii) topological insulators and topological superconductors, (ix) a variety of Dirac materials including Dirac and Weyl semimetals, as well as (x) knots and network structures. Topological databases and algorithms to model such materials have been also established in this book. In order to understand and properly characterize these important emergent materials, it is necessary to go far beyond the traditional paradigm of microscopic structure-property-function relationships to a paradigm that explicitly incorporates topological aspects from the outset to characterize and/or predict the physical properties and currently untapped functionalities of these advanced materials. Simulation and modeling tools including quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, 3D visualization and tomography are also indispensable. These concepts have found applications in condensed matter physics, materials science and engineering, physical chemistry and biophysics, and the various topics covered in the book have potential applications in connection with novel synthesis techniques, sensing and catalysis. As such, the book offers a unique resource for graduate students and researchers alike.

This book investigates the common nature of granular and active systems, which is rooted in their intrinsic out-of-equilibrium behavior, with the aim of finding minimal models able to reproduce and predict the complex collective behavior observed in experiments and simulations. Granular and active matter are among the most studied systems in out-of-equilibrium statistical physics. The book guides readers through the derivation of a fluctuating hydrodynamic description of granular and active matter by means of controlled and transparent mathematical assumptions made on a lattice model. It also shows how a macroscopic description can be provided from microscopic requirements, leading to the prediction of collective states such as cooling, swarming, clustering and the transitions among them. The analytical and numerical results shed new light on the physical connection between the local, microscopic properties of few particles and the macroscopic collective motion of the whole system.

This book presents a comprehensive and unifying approach to analytical identification of material properties of biological materials. Focusing on depth-sensing indentation testing, pipette aspiration testing, and torsion of soft tissues, it discusses the following important aspects in detail: damping, adhesion, thickness effect, substrate effect, elastic inhomogeneity effect, and biphasic effect. This book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers in the area of biomechanics as well as for biomedical engineers interested in contact problems and involved in inverse materials parameters prediction analysis.

This book addresses aspects of neutron scattering associated with magnetic systems in disorder. These systems range in complexity from an isolated defect in a ferromagnet to materials such as amorphous spin glass materials which have massive disorder in terms of both atomic arrangement and magnetism. The primary focus of the text is neutron scattering but the author draws a connection with other probes of magnetic systems whenever appropriate. Topics covered include: the relationship between the neutron cross section and the magnetization and susceptibility of magnetic materials; polarized neutron techniques; and properties of dilute ferromagnetic alloys, spin glasses, and amorphous magnets. This book is intended for researchers in magnetism and disordered materials in condensed matter physics.

Pressure is one of the essential thermodynamic variables that, due to some former experimental difficulties, was long known as the forgotten variable. But this has changed over the last decade. This book includes the most essential first experiments from the 1960s and reviews the progress made in understanding glass formation with the application of pressure in the last ten years. The systems include amorphous polymers and glass-forming liquids, polypeptides and polymers blends. The thermodynamics of these systems, the relation of the structural relaxation to the chemical specificity, and their present and future potential applications are discussed in detail. The book provides (a) an overview of systems exhibiting glassy behavior in relation to their molecular structure and provides readers with the current state of knowledge on the liquid-to-glass transformation, (b) emphasizes the relation between thermodynamic state and dynamic response and (c) shows that the information on the pressure effects on dynamics can be employed in the design of materials for particular applications. It is meant to serve as an advanced introductory book for scientists and graduate students working or planning to work with dynamics. Several scientific papers dealing with the effects of pressure on dynamics have appeared in leading journals in the fields of physics in the last ten years. The book provides researchers and students new to the field with an overview of the knowledge that has been gained in a coherent and comprehensive way.

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This book focuses on the widely used experimental techniques available for the structural, morphological, and spectroscopic characterization of materials. Recent developments in a wide range of experimental techniques and their application to the quantification of materials properties are an essential side of this book. Moreover, it provides concise but thorough coverage of the practical and theoretical aspects of the analytical techniques used to characterize a wide variety of functional nanomaterials. The book provides an overview of widely used characterization techniques for a broad audience: from beginners and graduate students, to advanced specialists in both academia and industry.

The 3rd edition of this important dictionary offers more than 12,000 entries with expanded encyclopaedic-style definitions making this major reference work invaluable to practitioners, researchers and students working in the area of polymer science and technology. This new edition now includes entries on computer simulation and modeling, surface and interfacial properties and their characterization, functional and smart polymers. New and controlled architectures of polymers, especially dendrimers and controlled radical polymerization are also covered.