We are pleased to present the ?fth volume of Progress in Ultrafast Intense LaserScience.Asthefrontiersofultrafastintenselasersciencerapidlyexpand ever outward, there continues to be a growing demand for an introduction to this interdisciplinary research ?eld that is at once widely accessible and ca- ble of delivering cutting-edge developments. Our series aims to respond to this call by providing a compilation of concise review-style articles written by researchers at the forefront of this research ?eld, so that researchers with d- ferent backgrounds as well as graduate students can easily grasp the essential aspects. As in the previous volumes of PUILS, each chapter of this book begins with an introductory part, in which a clear and concise overview of the topic and its signi?cance is given, and moves onto a description of the authors' most recent research results. All the chapters are peer-reviewed. The articles ofthis?fth volumecovera diverserangeofthe interdisciplinaryresearch?eld, and the topics may be grouped into three categories: coherent responses of gaseousand condensed matter to ultrashortintense laser pulses (Chaps. 1-4), propagationof intense laser pulses (Chaps. 5, 6), and laser-plasma interaction and its applications (Chaps. 7-10). From the third volume, the PUILS series has been edited in liaison with the activities of Center for Ultrafast Intense Laser Science in The University of Tokyo, and JILS (Japan Intense Light Field Science Society), the latter of which has also been responsible for sponsoring the series and making the regularpublicationofitsvolumespossible.Fromthe presentvolume,the C- sortiumonEducationandResearchonAdvancedLaserScience,theUniversity of Tokyo, joins this publication activity as one of the sponsoring programs.

Microemulsions and gels are well-known systems, which play a major role in colloidal and interfacial science. In contrast, the concept of gel microemulsions is still quite new. Gelled microemulsions are highly promising for microemulsion applications in which low viscosity is undesirable, such as administering a drug-delivering microemulsion to a certain area of the skin. It is essential to understand the properties of and structures formed in a system combining microemulsion components and a gelator. This PhD thesis by Michaela Laupheimer provides an in-depth discussion of the phase behavior and sol-gel transition of a microemulsion gelled by a low molecular weight gelator as well as the rheological behavior of a gelled bicontinuous microemulsion. Moreover, the microstructure of the gelled bicontinuous system is fully clarified using techniques like self-diffusion NMR and small angle neutron scattering (SANS). By comparing gelled bicontinuous microemulsions with corresponding non-gelled microemulsions and binary gels, it is demonstrated that bicontinuous microemulsion domains coexist with a gelator network and that the coexisting structures possess no fundamental mutual influence. Hence, gelled bicontinuous microemulsions have been identified as a new type of orthogonal self-assembled system.

This volume provides a compact presentation of modern statistical physics at an advanced level, from the foundations of statistical mechanics to the main modern applications of statistical physics. Special attention is given to new approaches, such as quantum field theory methods and non-equilibrium problems. This second, revised edition is expanded with biographical notes contextualizing the main results in statistical physics.

The theme of 'escape from metastable states', either via noise-assisted hop- ping and/or quantum tunneling, is pivotal to many scientific disciplines. It impacts on suchdiversephysical,chemicalandbiologicalprocessesasdiffu- sion in solids, chemical reactions per se, nucleation phenomenaand transfer ofmatter and information in biologicalcomplexes, to name only a few. With 'New Trends in Kramers' Reaction Rate Theory' this book fills yet another part of the multifaceted scope which underpins the Understanding of Chemical Reactivity. Since the publication of the comprehensive review about reaction rate theory in Rev. Mod. Phys. 52, 251 (1990) the field has witnessed many majordevelopments and extensions both in experiment and theory. In this book the focus will be on the theoretical progress. In doing so, the editorscollected aseries ofauthoritative articles from majorpractitioners in the field which as a whole give a representative- although notcomplete- sample ofthe novel recenttheoretical advances. As an inevitable consequence, the editors recognize that not all readers will wish to digest the volume in its entirety. We trust, however, that the reader will be able to choose from the many methods and techniques which he is interested in, and which he requires to perform his own new research in this area. There is the consistent underlying theme of noise-assisted barrier crossing that is running through all of the book. Nevertheless, each chapter should be considered as self contained. In this spirit the editors share the confident beliefthat the future research on the Kramers problem, and related topics, will be invigorated by the selectedcontributions herein.

This book represents a collection of lectures presented at the NATO Advanced study Institute(ASI) on "Chemistry & Physics of the Molecular Processes in Energetic Materials," held at Hotel Torre Normanna, Altavilla Milicia, Sicily, Italy, September 3 to 15, 1989. The institute was attended by seventy participants including twenty lecturers, drawn from thirteen countries. The purpose of the institute was to review the major ad vances made in recent years in the theoretical and experi mental aspects of explosives and propellants. In accordance with the format of the NATO ASI, it was arranged to have a relatively small number of speakers to present in depth, re view type lectures emphasizing the basic research aspects of the subject, over a two week period. Most of the speakers gave two lectures, each in excess of one hour with addition al time for discussions. The scope of the meeting was limit ed to molecular and spectroscopic studies since the hydro dynamic aspects of detonation and various performance crite ria of energetic materials are often covered adequately in other international meetings. An attempt was made to have a coherent presentation of various theoretical, computational and spectroscopic approaches to help a better understanding of energetic materials from a molecular point of view. The progress already made in these areas is such that structure property (e. g."

Biological chemistry has changed since the completion of the human genome project. There is a renewed interest and market for individuals trained in biophysical chemistry and molecular biophysics. The Physical Basis of Biochemistry, Second Edition, emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of biophysical chemistry by incorporating the quantitative perspective of the physical sciences without sacrificing the complexity and diversity of the biological systems, applies physical and chemical principles to the understanding of the biology of cells and explores the explosive developments in the area of genomics, and in turn, proteomics, bioinformatics, and computational and visualization technologies that have occurred in the past seven years. The book features problem sets and examples, clear illustrations, and extensive appendixes that provide additional information on related topics in mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Structures, Bonding and Hydrogen Bonds, by Kun Dong, Qian Wang, Xingmei Lu, Suojiang Zhang Aggregation in System of Ionic Liquids, by Jianji Wang, Huiyong Wang Dissolution of Biomass Using Ionic Liquids, by Hui Wang, Gabriela Gurau, Robin D. Rogers Effect of the Structures of Ionic Liquids on Their Physical-Chemical Properties, by Yu-Feng Hu, Xiao-Ming Peng Microstructure study of Ionic liquids by spectroscopy, by Haoran Li Structures and Thermodynamic Properties of Ionic Liquids, by Tiancheng Mu, Buxing Han

This book is an excellent introduction to density functional theory for electrons. Largely written in review style, it will also serve as an excellent overview of recent developments.
Nonrelativistic and relativistic approaches are discussed and conventional ground-state as well as polarization density functional and time-dependent density functional formalisms are introduced. A careful discussion of the exchange-correlation functional and approximations is presented and a chapter is devoted to an analysis of hybrid wavefunction/density-functional approximations.

It is the purpose of this book to present a concise and sufficiently detailed de scription of the present state and possibilities of calculating chemical equilibria of gas mixtures. It is based on a book by one of the authors, published in Czech by the Publishing House Academia in Prague. The rapid development of the topic during the two years since publication of the Czech edition has made it necessary to revise practically all the sections in order to bring them up to the present level of know ledge. One reason for writing this book was the practical requirement of contemporary industry, where a rational utilization of equilibrium composition calculations may provide valuable information concerning processes under study in all stages of their implementation. A second reason was the need of a text-book for studying this part of chemical thermodynamics in the scope as taught at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague. These two basic motives determine the overall structure of the book, as well as the proportions and arrangement of the chapters. The book includes fundamental thermodynamic concepts as well as the mathematical apparatus needed to solve the problems involved, care being taken that the discussion should always l ad to a practical procedure of performing equilibrium calculations in gas-phase systems of any degree of complexity whatever. Knowledge of chemical thermodynamics on the level of a fundamental university course is assumed."

The nitrides and carbides of boron and silicon are proving to be an excellent choice when selecting materials for the design of devices that are to be employed under particularly demanding environmental and thermal con- tions. The high degree of cross-linking, due to the preferred coordination numbers of the predominantly covalently bonded constituents equalling or exceeding three, lends these non-oxidic ceramics a high kinetic stability, and is regarded as the microscopic origin of their impressive thermal and mechanical durability. Thus it does not come as a surprise that the chemistry, the physical properties and the engineering of the corresponding binary, ternary, and even quaternary compounds have been the subject of intensive and sustained efforts in research and development. In the five reviews presented in the volumes 101 and 102 of "Structure and Bonding" an attempt has been made to cover both the essential and the most recent advances achieved in this particular field of materials research. The scope of the individual contributions is such as to address both graduate students, specializing in ceramic materials, and all scientists in academia or industry dealing with materials research and development. Each review provides, in its introductory part, the chemical, physical and, to some extent, historical background of the respective material, and then focuses on the most relevant and the most recent achievements.

The nitrides and carbides of boron and silicon are proving to be an excellent choice when selecting materials for the design of devices that are to be employed under particularly demanding environmental and thermal con- tions. The high degree of cross-linking, due to the preferred coordination numbers of the predominantly covalently bonded constituents equalling or exceeding three, lends these non-oxidic ceramics a high kinetic stability, and is regarded as the microscopic origin of their impressive thermal and mechanical durability. Thus it does not come as a surprise that the chemistry, the physical properties and the engineering of the corresponding binary, ternary, and even quaternary compounds have been the subject of intensive and sustained efforts in research and development. In the five reviews presented in the volumes 101 and 102 of "Structure and Bonding" an attempt has been made to cover both the essential and the most recent advances achieved in this particular field of materials research. The scope of the individual contributions is such as to address both graduate students, specializing in ceramic materials, and all scientists in academia or industry dealing with materials research and development. Each review provides, in its introductory part, the chemical, physical and, to some extent, historical background of the respective material, and then focuses on the most relevant and the most recent achievements.

Polymers in Solution was written for scientists and engineers who have serious research interests in newer methods for characterization of polymer solutions, but who are not seasoned experts in the theoretical and experimental aspects of polymer science. In particular, it is assumed that the reader is not familiar with the development of theoretical notions in conformational statistics and the dynamics of chainlike molecules; how these two seemingly diverse theoretical topics are related; and the role played by polymer-solvent interactions. Chapter 1 thus presents background material that introduces most of the essential concepts, including some of the mathematical apparatus most commonly used in these areas of theory. This introduction is followed by five chapters that are more closely related to particular experimental techniques. These chapters introduce further theoretical notions as needed. Three of the chapters present con siderable detail on the experimental methods, while two other chapters deal more with the interpretation of experimental results in terms of current theories. Although neutron scattering has become an almost standard technique for the study of conformational properties of macromolecules in the solid state, there has been less emphasis on its application for characterization of polymer molecules in solution. Chapter 4 covers this growing area of application."

This book presents the fundamentals of bonding in polyoxometalates and related oxides based on classical bonding concepts and the bond valence model. The in-depth treatment includes a revision of the procedure for the determination of the parameters of bond length-bond valence functions, the application of the bond valence model to polyoxometalates and related oxides, and the explanation of the distribution of the bond valences, and hence of the bond lengths, over the metal-oxygen bond and of the ionic charge on the oxygen atoms. Numerous tables and figures underline and illuminate the results. The principal author is a leader in the field of polyoxometalate chemistry. This work provides for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the structure and bonding in polyoxometalates, based on classical chemical concepts and the bond valence approach, and as such is a valuable resource for chemists, physicists and material scientists working in the field.

Materials syntheses are generally more complex than syntheses of inorganic or organic compounds, and specific characterization methods play a more important role. Materials synthesis protocols often suffer from unclarities, irreproducibility, lack in detail and lack in standards. The need to change this situation is the main motivation for this book. A number of detailed protocols has been collected, ranging from organic polymers to carbonaceous and ceramic materials, from gels to porous and layered materials and from powders and nanoparticles to films. Preparation methods include intercalation and flux methods, sol-gel processing, templating methods for porous materials, sonochemistry or spray pyrolysis.

Each contribution provides detailed and unambiguous description of the hardware, specific characteristics of the procedure, scope of applicability as well as methods that unequivocally identify and characterize the material and allow checking whether the synthesis was successful.

Proceedings of the 18th course of the International School of Crystallography, held April 1990, in Erice, Italy. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

This series is designed to provide a vehicle in which investigators, who have demonstrated a high degree of competence in some aspect of free radical chemistry, can present a particular area of interest. The series encompasses a wide variety of topics which are of current interest.

"Molecular Sieves - Science and Technology" will cover, in a comprehensive manner, the science and technology of zeolites and all related microporous and mesoporous materials. Authored by renowned experts, the contributions will be grouped together topically in such a way that each volume of the book series will be dealing with a specific sub-field. Volume 2 covers both the description of the various, complementary techniques for structure determination of microporous and mesoporous matter and their applications illustrated by a large number of pertinent examples. It also deals with general aspects of structures and structure distortions of microporous materials. In summary, Volume 2 provides the researchers in the field of zeolites and related materials with the indispensable knowledge of the great potential of modern methods for structure analysis.

Mechanical methods of the activation of chemical processes are currently widely used for the synthesis of various compounds. The present monograph deals with the development of a novel approach to mechanochemical synthesis based on reactions of solid acids, bases, hydrated compounds, crystal hydrates, basic and acidic salts. This method has been called soft mechanochemical synthesis. The monograph includes the papers published by the present authors. They describe the results of their investigations n the last two decades. New theoretical and experimental data on kinetics and mechanism of soft mechanochemical reactions in the mixtures of compounds mentioned above to give complex oxide compounds are presented. The description of new high energetic and high efficient mills providing effective occurrence of these reactions is delivered. The possibilities of applying soft mechanochemical synthesis for materials used in catalysts, material science, electronics, etc., are discussed. The advantages of the method proposed in comparison with other methods are demonstrated. The monograph is designed for researchers, engineers and technicians engaged in chemical and ceramic industry, for scientists and students specialized in the area of development, and application of new materials.

This book presents the "helical wormlike chain" model - a general model for both flexible and semiflexible polymer chains. It explains how statistical-mechanical, hydrodynamic, and dynamic theories of their solution properties can be developed on the basis of this model. This new second edition has been carefully updated and thoroughly revised. It includes a new chapter covering "Simulation and More on Excluded-Volume Effects", as well as the discussion of new experimental data and the application of the theory to ring polymers. The authors provide analysis of important recent experimental data by the use of their theories for flexible polymers over a wide range of molecular weights, including the oligomer region, and for semiflexible polymers, including biological macromolecules such as DNA. This is all clearly illustrated using a reasonable number of theoretical equations, tables, figures, and computer-aided forms, which support the understanding of the basic theory and help to facilitate its application to experimental data for the polymer molecular characterization.

Extensively revised and expanded, this timely reference discusses the synthesis, properties, and potential applications of popular and emerging surfactant compounds and systems. This reference reflects current research trends in green surfactants, the production of surfactants using biotechnological methods, and surfactants based on natural building blocks. Offering nearly 2000 valuable references, the Second Edition contains five new chapters analyzing aspects of natural surfactants, and examines surfactants produced by microorganisms, surfactant types based on sugar as hydrophilic building block, and surfactant classes based on fatty acids as hydrophobic building block.

This book explores the possibility of using micro/nanostructures formed on the doped ice surface as a novel separation platform. In addition, it provides comprehensive information on the nature of freeze-concentrated solutions (FCSs) and the ice/FCS interface, which play important roles in the natural environment and industrial processes alike. The book proposes a novel size-selective separation approach using channels formed on the doped ice surface. The separation is based on the physical interaction of analytes with channel walls, which is controlled by varying the channel width through temperature and dopant concentration changes. It also shows the precise control of the channel width to be in a range of 200 nm-4 m and demonstrates the size-selective separation of microspheres, cells, and DNA. The physicochemical properties of FCSs are measured to reveal the nature of the ice/FCS interface, and the zeta potentials of ice are measured by determining EOF rates in a microchannel fabricated in the ice. The deprotonation at OH dangling bonds and adsorption of ions are also discussed. The viscosities of FCSs confined in micro/nanospaces are evaluated by means of two spectroscopic methods. When an FCS is confined in small spaces surrounded by ice, the viscosity increases compared to that in a bulk solution. Interestingly, this viscosity enhancement occurs even though its size is on the micrometer scale. These parameters are essential to discussing the unique phenomena occurring in FCSs. This book provides an explanation of the scientific processes taking place in FCSs, and reveals the potential that frozen solutions hold as innovative micro/nanofluidic devices and reaction platforms.

In response to intensifying interest on surfactant research brought on by recent innovation, Structure-Performance Relationships in Surfactants, Second Edition examines novel developments in our understanding of the properties and performance of surfactants at air-liquid, liquid-liquid, and solid-liquid interfaces, highlighting seven new chapters and carefully updated material to reflect current trends. This edition presents new material on the adsorption of vesicle-forming surfactants at the air-water interface, fluorinated surfactants having two hydrophobic chains, surface-active properties of telomer-type surfactants having several hydrocarbon chains, and the association behavior of amphiphilic dendritic polymers, among many other topics.

Catalysis and Electrocatalysis at Nanoparticle Surfaces illustrates the latest developments in electrochemical nanotechnology, heterogeneous catalysis, surface science, and theoretical modeling. It describes the manipulation, characterization, control, and application of nanoparticles for enhanced catalytic activity and selectivity and presents a range of experimental and synthetic strategies for work in nanoscale surface science.

Thisis a comprehensive source for physical, surface, and colloid chemists; materials scientists; interfacial chemists and electrochemists; electrochemical engineers; theoretical physicists; chemical engineers; and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines.

Mechanisms of Inorganic and Organometallic Reactions provides an ongoing critical review of the primary literature concerned with mechanisms of inorganic and organometallic reactions. The main focus is on reactions in solution, although solid-state and gas-phase studies are included where they provide relevant mechanistic insight. Each volume covers an eighteen-month literature period, and this, the eighth volume in the series, includes papers published during January 1990 through June 1991. Where appropriate, references to earlier reports and to specific sections in previous volumes are given. Coverage spans the whole area as comprehensively as possible in each volume, and while it is impossible to be absolutely exhaustive, every effort is made to include all of the important published work that is relevant to the elucidation of reaction mechanisms. Numerical data are reported in the units used by the original authors, and they are converted to common units only when comparisons are being made. The successful format of earlier volumes is retained to facilitate tracing progress over several years in a particular topic, and the series now permits this to be done for a twelve-year period. The introduction three volumes ago of computerized techniques to improve cross-referencing in the Index brought positive reader comments, and their use is being continued.

This book presents emerging contemporary optical techniques of ultrafast science which have opened entirely new vistas for probing biological entities and processes. The spectrum reaches from time-resolved imaging and multiphoton microscopy to cancer therapy and studies of DNA damage. The book displays interdisciplinary research at the interface of physics and biology. Emerging topics on the horizon are also discussed, like the use of squeezed light, frequency combs and terahertz imaging as the possibility of mimicking biological systems. The book is written in a manner to make it readily accessible to researchers, postgraduate biologists, chemists, engineers, and physicists and students of optics, biomedical optics, photonics and biotechnology.