The conference "Nonlinear Optics and Optical Computing" was held May 11-19, 1988 in Erice, Sicily. This was the 13th conference organized by the International School of Quantum Electronics, under the auspices of the "Ettore Majorana" Center for Scientific Culture. This volume contains both the invited and contributed papers presented at the conference, providing tutorial background, the latest research results, and future directions for the devices, structures and architectures of optical computing. The invention of the transistor and the integrated circuit were followed by an explosion of application as ever faster and more complex microelectronics chips became available. The information revolution occa sioned by digital computers and optical communications is now reaching the limits of silicon semiconductor technology, but the demand for faster com putation is still accelerating. The fundamental limitations of information processing today derive from the performance and cost of three technical factors: speed, density, and software. Optical computation offers the potential for improvements in all three of these critical areas: Speed is provided by the transmission of impulses at optical veloc ities, without the delays caused by parasitic capacitance in the case of conventional electrical interconnects. Speed can also be achieved through the massive parallelism characteristic of many optical computing architec tures; Density can be provided in optical computers in two ways: by high spatial resolution, on the order of wavelengths of light, and by computa tion or interconnection in three dimensions."

This text is an introduction to the physics of collisional plasmas, as opposed to plasmas in space. It is intended for graduate students in physics and engineering . The first chapter introduces with progressively increasing detail, the fundamental concepts of plasma physic. The motion of individual charged particles in various configurations of electric and magnetic fields is detailed in the second chapter while the third chapter considers the collective motion of the plasma particles described according to a hydrodynamic model. The fourth chapter is most original in that it introduces a general approach to energy balance, valid for all types of discharges comprising direct current(DC) and high frequency (HF) discharges, including an applied static magnetic field. The basic concepts required in this fourth chapter have been progressively introduced in the previous chapters. The text is enriched with approx. 100 figures, and alphabetical index and 45 fully resolved problems. Mathematical and physical appendices provide complementary information or allow to go deeper in a given subject.

This book describes the key theoretical techniques for semiconductor research to quantitatively calculate and simulate the properties. It presents particular techniques to study novel semiconductor materials, such as 2D heterostructures, quantum wires, quantum dots and nitrogen containing III-V alloys. The book is aimed primarily at newcomers working in the field of semiconductor physics to give guidance in theory and experiment. The theoretical techniques for electronic and optoelectronic devices are explained in detail.

Initially a subfield of solid state physics, the study of mesoscopic systems has evolved over the years into a vast field of research in its own right. Keeping track its rapid progress, this book provides a broad survey of the latest developments in the field. The focus is on statistics and dynamics of mesoscopic systems with special emphasis on topics like quantum chaos, localization, noise and fluctuations, mesoscopic optics and quantum transport in nanostructures. Written with nonspecialists in mind, this book will also be useful to graduate students wishing to familiarize themselves with this field of research.

This book brings together an emerging consensus on our understanding of the complex functional materials including ferroics, perovskites, multiferroics, CMR and high-temperature superconductors. The common theme is the existence of many competing ground states and frustration as a collusion of spin, charge, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom in the presence of disorder and (both dipolar and elastic) long-range forces. An important consequence of the complex unit cell and the competing interactions is that the emergent materials properties are very sensitive to external fields thus rendering these materials with highly desirable, technologically important applications enabled by cross-response.

One of the major challenges in current chemistry is to ?nd molecules able to move charges rapidly and ef?ciently from, for example, one terminus to another one under the control of an external electrical, electrochemical or photochemical stimulus. Nature has provided impressive examples of how these goals are achieved. The photosynthetic reaction center protein, for instance, rapidly moves electrons with near unity quantum ef?ciency across a lipid bilayer membrane using several redox cofactors, and thus, serves as a model for developing biomimetic analogues for applications in ?elds such as photovoltaic devices, molecular electronics and photonic materials. In this context, p-conjugated oligomeric molecular assemblies are of particular interest because they provide ef?cient electronic couplings between electroactive units - donor and acceptor termini - and display wire-like behavior. In order to make a molecule able to behave as an ideal molecular wire different requirements need to be ful?lled: i) matching between the donor (acceptor) and bridge energy levels, ii) a good electronic coupling between the electron donor and acceptor units via the bridge orbitals, and iii) a small attenuation factor. Among the many different p-conjugated oligomers, oligo(p-phenylenevin- enes) (oPPV), have emerged as a particularly promising model system that helps to comprehend/rationalize the basic features of polymeric poly(p-phenyle- vinylenes) and also as a versatile building block for novel materials with che- cally tailored properties.

Hydrogen Bonding New Insights is an extensive text which takes numerous examples from experimental studies and uses these to illustrate theoretical investigations to allow a greater understanding of hydrogen bonding phenomenon. The most important topics in recent studies are considered including:

Intra-molecular H-bonds

Differences between H-bond and van der Waals interactions from one side and covalent bonds from the other

Bader theory to analyze H-bonding

Influence of weak H-bonds upon structure and function of biological molecules

H-bonds in crystal structures

With contributions from some of the foremost experts in this field this volume provides an invaluable resource for all members of the academic community looking for a comprehensive text on hydrogen bonding. It will be of particular interest to physical and theoretical chemists, spectroscopists, crystallographers and those involved with chemical physics."

The increasing global demand for energy requires a versatile approach, prompting many researchers to focus on renewable bioenergy from different biomasses, especially cellulosic biomass. Such biomasses can be agricultural wastes, municipal wastes or direct harvests from high-yield energy corps. If properly pre-treated, the subsequent enzyme hydrolysis step is much more effective and can effectively minimises the waste disposal.

"Green Biomass Pretreatment for Biofuels Production " reviews a range of pretreatment methods such as ammonium fiber explosion, steam explosion, dilute acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis, and supercritical carbon dioxide explosion focusing on their final sugar yields from hemicellulose, glucose yields from cellulose, as well as on their feasibilities in bioenergy production processes at various scales.

This book emphasises the tactical mobile and on-farm scales applications that use green pretreatments and processing technologies without the need of on-site waste treatment. Because of the varieties of different biomasses, no single pretreatment is expected to be the universal choice. Some of the pretreatment methods present niche applications are also discussed.

This book presents the theory, analysis, and design of ultra-wideband (UWB) radar and sensor systems (in short, UWB systems) and their components. UWB systems find numerous applications in the military, security, civilian, commercial and medicine fields. This book addresses five main topics of UWB systems: System Analysis, Transmitter Design, Receiver Design, Antenna Design and System Integration and Test. The developments of a practical UWB system and its components using microwave integrated circuits, as well as various measurements, are included in detail to demonstrate the theory, analysis and design technique. Essentially, this book will enable the reader to design their own UWB systems and components. In the System Analysis chapter, the UWB principle of operation as well as the power budget analysis and range resolution analysis are presented. In the UWB Transmitter Design chapter, the design, fabrication and measurement of impulse and monocycle pulse generators are covered. The UWB Receiver Design chapter addresses the design and measurement of the strobe pulse generator, sampling mixer, low-noise amplifier and synchronous sampling receiver. Next, the UWB Antenna Design chapter details the design and measurement of to two UWB antennas: the microstrip quasi-horn antenna and the UWB uniplanar antenna. The System Integration and Test chapter covers the transmission-reception test, signal processing, system integration, and evaluation of the UWB sensor. The final chapter provides a summary and conclusion of the work.

Standard approaches to understanding swarms rely on inspiration from biology and are generally covered by the term "biomimetics". This book focuses on a different, complementary inspiration, namely physics. The editors have introduced the term 'physicomimetics' to refer to physics-based swarm approaches, which offer two advantages. First, they capture the notion that "nature is lazy', meaning that physics-based systems always perform the minimal amount of work necessary, which is an especially important advantage in swarm robotics. Second, physics is the most predictive science, and can reduce complex systems to simple concepts and equations that codify emergent behavior and help us to design and understand swarms. The editors consolidated over a decade of work on swarm intelligence and swarm robotics, organizing the book into 19 chapters as follows. Part I introduces the concept of swarms and offers the reader a physics tutorial; Part II deals with applications of physicomimetics, in order of increased complexity; Part III examines the hardware requirements of the presented algorithms and demonstrates real robot implementations; Part IV demonstrates how the theory can be used to design swarms from first principles and provides a novel algorithm that handles changing environments; finally, Part V shows that physicomimetics can be used for function optimization, moving the reader from issues of swarm robotics to swarm intelligence. The text is supported with a downloadable package containing simulation code and videos of working robots. This book is suitable for talented high school and undergraduate students, as well as researchers and graduate students in the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics.

This book describes the basic mechanisms, theory, simulations and technological aspects of Laser processing techniques. It covers the principles of laser quenching, welding, cutting, alloying, selective sintering, ablation, etc. The main attention is paid to the quantitative description. The diversity and complexity of technological and physical processes is discussed using a unitary approach. The book aims on understanding the cause-and-effect relations in physical processes in Laser technologies. It will help researchers and engineers to improve the existing and develop new Laser machining techniques. The book addresses readers with a certain background in general physics and mathematical analysis: graduate students, researchers and engineers practicing laser applications.

The conference "Laser Science and Technology" was held May 11-19, 1987 in Erice, Sicily. This was the 12th conference organized by the Internatio nal School of Quantum Electronics, under the auspices of the "Ettore Majorana" Center for Scientific Culture. This volume contains both the in vited and contributed papers presented at the conference, covering current research work in two areas: new laser sources, and laser applications. The operation of the first laser by Dr. Theodore Maiman in 1960 initia ted a decade of scientific exploration of new laser sources. This was fol lowed by the decade of the 1970s, which was characterized by "technology push" in which the discoveries of the 1960s were seeking practical applica tion. In the 1980s we are instead seeking "applications pull," in which the success and rapid maturing of laser applications provides both inspiration and financial resources to stimulate additional work both on laser sources and applications. The papers presented in these Proceedings attest to the great vitali ty of research in both these areas: New Laser Sources. The papers describe current developments in ultra violet excimer lasers, X-ray lasers, and free electron lasers. These new lasers share several characteristics: each is a potentially important coher ent source; each is at a relatively short wavelength (below 1 micrometer); and each is receiving significant development attention today."

This volume contains the proceedings of The Second Polish-US Conf- ence on High Temperature Superconductivity which was held August 18-21, 1998 in Karpacz, Poland. The conference followed The First Polish-US C- ference on High Temperature Superconductivity organized in 1995, proce- ings of which were published by Springer-Verlag in 1996 (Recent Devel- ments in High Temperature Superconductivity, Lecture Notes in Physics 475). High Temperature Superconductivity (HTSC) in complex copper oxides has become a household name after twelve years of intense research following its discovery in 1986 by J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Miiller. Because of the rapid growth of the HTSC field, there is a need for periodic summary and conden- tion both for scientists working in the field and, especially, for young resear- ers entering the field of oxide materials. Following the First Conference, it was recognized that an extended format of lectures perfectly satisfied that need, providing adequate time for experts from the international community to fully introduce and develop complex ideas. Thus, the format of the Second Conference brought together by cooperating scientists from the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research of the Polish Academy of Science at Wroctaw, Northern Illinois University, and Argonne National Laboratory remained mostly unchanged. Again, we were delighted to receive enthusiastic responses from distinguished US and Polish scientists who were invited to p- ticipate.

This volume contains the Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Growth and Optical Properties of Wide Gap II-VI Low Dimensional Semiconductors," held from 2 - 6 August 1988 in Regensburg, Federal Republic of Germany, under the auspices of the NATO International Scientific Exchange Programme. Semiconducting compounds formed by combining an element from column II of the periodic table with an element from column VI (so called II-VI Semiconductors) have long promised many optoelectronic devices operating in the visible region of the spectrum. However, these materials have encountered numerous problems including: large number of defects and difficulties in obtaining p- and n-type doping. Advances in new methods of material preparation may hold the key to unlocking the unfulfilled promises. During the workshop a full session was taken up covering the prospects for wide-gap II-VI Semiconductor devices, particularly light emitting ones. The growth of bulk materials was reviewed with the view of considering II-VI substrates for the novel epitaxial techniques such as MOCVD, MBE, ALE, MOMBE and ALE-MBE. The controlled introduction of impurities during non-equilibrium growth to provide control of the doping type and conductivity was emphasized.

This book contains all the papers presented at the NATO workshop on "Optical Switching in Low Dimensional Systems" held in Marbella, Spain from October 6th to 8th, 1988. Optical switching is a basic function for optical data processing, which is of technological interest because of its potential parallelism and its potential speed. Semiconductors which exhibit resonance enhanced optical nonlinearities in the frequency range close to the band edge are the most intensively studied materials for optical bistability and fast gate operation. Modern crystal growth techniques, particularly molecular beam epitaxy, allow the manufacture of semiconductor microstructures such as quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots in which the electrons are only free to move in two, one or zero dimensions, of the optically excited electron-hole pairs in these low respectively. The spatial confinement dimensional structures gives rise to an enhancement of the excitonic nonlinearities. Furthermore, the variations of the microstruture extensions, of the compositions, and of the doping offer great new flexibility in engineering the desired optical properties. Recently, organic chain molecules (such as polydiacetilene) which are different realizations of one dimensional electronic systems, have been shown also to have interesting optical nonlinearities. Both the development and study of optical and electro-optical devices, as well as experimental and theoretical investigations of the underlying optical nonlinearities, are contained in this book.

The main goal of the meeting was to facilitate and encourage the application of recent developments in the physical and mathematical sciences to the analysis of deterministic and stochastic processes in nuclear engineering. In contrast with the rapid growth (triggered by computer developments) of nonlinear analysis in other branches of the physical sciences, the theoretical analysis of nuclear reactors is still based on linearized models of the neutronics and thermal-hydraulic feedback loop, an approach that ignores some intrinsic nonlinearities of the real system. The subject of noise was added because of the importance of the noise technique in detecting abnormalities associated with perturbations of sufficient amplitude to generate nonlinear processes. Consequently the organizers of the meeting invited a group of leading researchers in the field of noise and nonlinear phenomena in nuclear systems to report on recent advances in their area of research. A selected subgroup of researchers in areas outside the reactor field provided enlightenment on new theoretical developments of immediate relevance to nuclear dynamics theory.

In preparing the program for this Conference, the third in the series, it soon became evident that it was not possible to in clude in a conference of reasonable duration all the topics that might be subsumed under the broad title, "High Energy Physics and Nuclear Structure. " From their initiation, in 1963, it has been as much the aim of these Conferences to provide some bridges between the steadily separating domains of particle and nuclear physics, as to explore thoroughly the borderline territory between the two - the sort of no-man's-land that lies unclaimed, or claimed by both sides. The past few years have witnessed the rapid development of many new routes connecting the two major areas of 'elementary par ticles' and 'nuclear structure', and these now spread over a great expanse of physics, logically perhaps including the whole of both subjects. (As recently as 1954, an International Conference on 'Nuclear and Meson Physics' did, in fact, embrace both fields ) Since it is not now possible to traverse, in one Conference, this whole network of connections, still less to explore the entire ter ritory it covers, the choice of topics has to be in some degree arbitrary. It is hoped that ours has served the purpose of fairly exemplifying many areas where physicists, normally separated by their diverse interests, can find interesting and important topics which bring them together."

The volume contains the proceedings of the 7th Course on Physics and Technology of Free Electron Lasers of the International School of Quantum Electronics, which was held in Erice (Italy) from 17 to 29 August 1980, under the auspices of the "Ettore Majorana" Centre for Scientific Culture. The level of this Course was much closer to a workshop than to a school, and "Advances in Free Electron Lasers" might have been an appropriate title. Many of the world's leading scientists in the field (among them, the inventor of FEL, J. M. J. Madey) were brought together to review the accomplishments of FEL experiments, as well various trends in FEL theory. In editing this material we did not modify the original manu scripts except to assist in uniformity of style. The papers. are presented without reference to the chronology of the Course but in the following topical arrangement: A. "Fundamentals of free electron lasers," a group of tutorial papers; B. "Free electron lasers operating in the Compton regime," where theories and experiments of FELs based on Compton scattering are reviewed; C. "Free electron lasers operating in the Raman regime," a dis cussion of FELs based on Raman scattering; D. "Optical klystrons," where the possibility of this class of FEL is discussed from a theoretical viewpoint; E."

The NATO Science Committee and its subsidiary Programme Panels provide support for Advanced Research Institutes (ARI) in various fields. The idea is to bring together scientists of a chosen field with the hope that they will achieve a consensus on research direc tions for the future, and make recommendations for the benefit of a wider scientific community. Attendance is therefore limited to those whose experience and expertise make the conclusions significant and acceptable to the wider community. Participants are selected on the basis of substantial track records in research or in the synthesis of research results to serve mankind. The proposal for a one-week ARIon Earth Observation and In formation Systems was initiated by the NATO Special Programme Panel on Systems Science (SPPOSS). In approving the ARI, the senior NATO Science Committee identified the subject as one of universal impor tance, requiring a broad perspective on the development of opera tional systems based on successful experimental systems. The general purpose of this ARI was to address the critical problems of integrating the relatively new science and technology of remote sensing into operational earth observation and manage ment information systems. The main problems of concern were those related to systems design, organization, development of infrastruc ture, and use of information in decision processes. The main empha sis was on problems of transferring technologies and methods from experimental to operational systems."

The 6th course of the futernational School of Solid State Physics was held in Erice, Sicily, at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture, 19-29 June, 1995. The course was organized as a NATO Advanced Study Institute and received generous support from NATO's Nanoscale Science Program. This volume is based on the lectures presented during the course. fudispensable for the planning of the summer school was the support of the Director of the Ettore Majorana Centre, Professor A. Zichichi. We wish to express our sincere appreciation to the center staff, Dr. Maria Zaini, Dr. Alberto Gabriele, Dr. Pinola Savalli and Dr. Jerry Pilarski for their expert assistance in all organizational matters. A special word of thanks must go to the director of the International School of Solid State Physics, Professor Giorgio Benedek, not only for his valuable advice in the planning stage, but also for his active participation in the program itself. I would like to thank my coworkers, Stefan Frank, Nikola Malinowski, Renee Stotz, Frank Tast and Kristin Wirth for their valuable assistance in preparing these proceedings of the meeting. The success of a school is, in the last analysis, determined by the inter- est and commitment of the lecturers and participants. I am very grateful to the lecturers for their carefully prepared formal presentations, to the par- ticipants for their contributions to the spontaneous evening "workshops", and to all for their inexhaustible enthusiasm.

In this book we display the fundamental structure underlying classical electro dynamics, i. e., the phenomenological theory of electric and magnetic effects. The book can be used as a textbook for an advanced course in theoretical electrodynamics for physics and mathematics students and, perhaps, for some highly motivated electrical engineering students. We expect from our readers that they know elementary electrodynamics in the conventional (1 + 3)-dimensional form including Maxwell's equations. More over, they should be familiar with linear algebra and elementary analysis, in cluding vector analysis. Some knowledge of differential geometry would help. Our approach rests on the metric-free integral formulation of the conservation laws of electrodynamics in the tradition of F. Kottler (1922), E. Cartan (1923), and D. van Dantzig (1934), and we stress, in particular, the axiomatic point of view. In this manner we are led to an understanding of why the Maxwell equa tions have their specific form. We hope that our book can be seen in the classical tradition of the book by E. J. Post (1962) on the Formal Structure of Electro magnetics and of the chapter "Charge and Magnetic Flux" of the encyclopedia article on classical field theories by C. Truesdell and R. A. Toupin (1960), in cluding R. A. Toupin's Bressanone lectures (1965); for the exact references see the end of the introduction on page 11. ."

Advances in the Theory of Atomic and Molecular Systems, is a collection of contributions presenting recent theoretical and computational developments that provide new insights into the structure, properties, and behavior of a variety of atomic and molecular systems. This volume (subtitled: Conceptual and Computational Advances in Quantum Chemistry) focuses on electronic structure theory and its foundations.

This volume is an invaluable resource for faculty, graduate students, and researchers interested in theoretical and computational chemistry and physics, physical chemistry and chemical physics, molecular spectroscopy, and related areas of science and engineering.

This second volume of the series on photorefractive effects focuses on the most recent developments in the field and highlights the parameters which govern the photoinduced nonlinearity. Besides reviewing conventional electro-optic crystals, this book deals with organic photorefractive materials, giving an in-depth assessment of the present understanding of the effect in a variety of materials. The materials considered in this volume will play a significant role in the development of applications such as presented in the third volume.

This book encompasses the science, measurement, fabrica tion, and use of superconducting materials in large scale and small scale technologies. The present book is in some sense a continuation and completion of a series of two earlier books based on NA TO Advanced Study Institutes held over the last decade. The first book in the series entitled Superconducting Machines nd Devices: Large Systems Appli cations edited by S. Foner and B. B. Schwartz (1974) represented a compilation of all the applications of superconducting technology. The second book entitled Superconductor Applications: Squids and Machines, edited by B. B. Schwartz and S. Foner (1977) reviewed small scale applications and up-dated the large scale applications of superconductiv ity at that time. These two books are both introductions and advanced reference volumes for almost all aspects of the applications of super conductivity. The growth of applied superconductivity has mushroomed in the decade of the 1970's. Technologies which were discussed in the beginning of the 1970's are now beyond the prototype stage. Materials development and performance in operating systems is the basis of the continued applications and economic viability of super conducting technology. In this book, a complete review of all materials technology is presented by leading authorities who were instrumental in the development of superconducting materials technology. The present book is based on the NATO Advanced Study vi PREFACE Institute entitled Superconducting Materials: Science and Technology which was held from August 20 to August 30, 1980 in Sintra, Portugal."