NMR spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful technique to study the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules. Fundamentals of Protein NMR Spectroscopy is a comprehensive textbook that guides the reader from a basic understanding of the phenomenological properties of magnetic resonance to the application and interpretation of modern multi-dimensional NMR experiments on 15N/13C-labeled proteins. Beginning with elementary quantum mechanics, a set of practical rules is presented and used to describe many commonly employed multi-dimensional, multi-nuclear NMR pulse sequences. A modular analysis of NMR pulse sequence building blocks also provides a basis for understanding and developing novel pulse programs. This text not only covers topics from chemical shift assignment to protein structure refinement, as well as the analysis of protein dynamics and chemical kinetics, but also provides a practical guide to many aspects of modern spectrometer hardware, sample preparation, experimental set-up, and data processing. End of chapter exercises are included to emphasize important concepts. Fundamentals of Protein NMR Spectroscopy not only offer students a systematic, in-depth, understanding of modern NMR spectroscopy and its application to biomolecular systems, but will also be a useful reference for the experienced investigator.

The series Topics in Current Chemistry presents critical reviews of the present and future trends in modern chemical research. The scope of coverage is all areas of chemical science including the interfaces with related disciplines such as biology, medicine and materials science. The goal of each thematic volume is to give the non-specialist reader, whether in academia or industry, a comprehensive insight into an area where new research is emerging which is of interest to a larger scientific audience. Each review within the volume critically surveys one aspect of that topic and places it within the context of the volume as a whole. The most significant developments of the last 5 to 10 years are presented using selected examples to illustrate the principles discussed. The coverage is not intended to be an exhaustive summary of the field or include large quantities of data, but should rather be conceptual, concentrating on the methodological thinking that will allow the non-specialist reader to understand the information presented. Contributions also offer an outlook on potential future developments in the field. Review articles for the individual volumes are invited by the volume editors. Readership: research chemists at universities or in industry, graduate students.

Denise Reichel studies the delicate subject of temperature measurement during lamp-based annealing of semiconductors, in particular during flash lamp annealing. The approach of background-correction using amplitude-modulated light to obtain the sample reflectivity is reinvented from rapid thermal annealing to apply to millisecond annealing. The author presents a new method independent of the lamp operation to obtain this amplitude modulation and derives a formula to describe the process. Further, she investigates the variables of the formula in depth to validate the method's suitability for background-corrected temperature measurement. The experimental results finally proof its power for elevated temperatures.

This is the first volume of textbooks on atomic, molecular and optical physics, aiming at a comprehensive presentation of this highly productive branch of modern physics as an indispensable basis for many areas in physics and chemistry as well as in state of the art bio- and material-sciences. It primarily addresses advanced students (including PhD students), but in a number of selected subject areas the reader is lead up to the frontiers of present research. Thus even the active scientist is addressed. This volume 1 provides the canonical knowledge in atomic physics together with basics of modern spectroscopy. Starting from the fundamentals of quantum physics, the reader is familiarized in well structured chapters step by step with the most important phenomena, models and measuring techniques. The emphasis is always on the experiment and its interpretation, while the necessary theory is introduced from this perspective in a compact and occasionally somewhat heuristic manner, easy to follow even for beginners.

This book embraces the entire range of problems associated with phase equilibria in "tungsten - carbon" binary system and related ternary systems, nonstoichiometry, disorder and order in different tungsten carbides, electronic and crystal structure of these carbides. The main application of tungsten carbides is constituent in hardmetals for cutting tools. In the last 20 years, the most active efforts were made in synthesis and application of nanocrystalline tungsten carbide for the production of nanostructured hardmetals. The present book describes in detail different methods for production of nanocrystalline tungsten carbide. The peculiarities of sintering of Co hardmetals from nanocrystalline powders having different particle sizes are discussed. Materials scientists using tungsten carbide to create novel superhard and tough materials will find this book particularly useful.

The many-body-theoretical basis and applications of theoretical spectroscopy of condensed matter, e.g. crystals, nanosystems, and molecules are unified in one advanced text for readers from graduate students to active researchers in the field. The theory is developed from first principles including fully the electron-electron interaction and spin interactions. It is based on the many-body perturbation theory, a quantum-field-theoretical description, and Green's functions. The important expressions for ground states as well as electronic single-particle and pair excitations are explained. Based on single-particle and two-particle Green's functions, the Dyson and Bethe-Salpeter equations are derived. They are applied to calculate spectral and response functions. Important spectra are those which can be measured using photoemission/inverse photoemission, optical spectroscopy, and electron energy loss/inelastic X-ray spectroscopy. Important approximations are derived and discussed in the light of selected computational and experimental results. Some numerical implementations available in well-known computer codes are critically discussed. The book is divided into four parts: (i) In the first part the many-electron systems are described in the framework of the quantum-field theory. The electron spin and the spin-orbit interaction are taken into account. Sum rules are derived. (ii) The second part is mainly related to the ground state of electronic systems. The total energy is treated within the density functional theory. The most important approximations for exchange and correlation are delighted. (iii) The third part is essentially devoted to the description of charged electronic excitations such as electrons and holes. Central approximations as Hedin's GW and the T-matrix approximation are discussed.(iv) The fourth part is focused on response functions measured in optical and loss spectroscopies and neutral pair or collective excitations.

Ken M. Harrison's latest book is a complete guide for amateur astronomers who want to obtain detailed narrowband images of the Sun using a digital spectroheliograph (SHG). The SHG allows the safe imaging of the Sun without the expense of commercial 'etalon' solar filters. As the supporting software continues to be refined, the use of the digital spectroheliograph will become more and more mainstream and has the potential to replace the expensive solar filters currently in use. The early chapters briefly explain the concept of the SHG and how it can produce an image from the solar spectrum. A comparison of the currently available narrow band solar filters is followed by a detailed analysis of the critical design, construction and assembly features of the SHG. The design and optimum layout of the instrument is discussed to allow evaluation of performance. This information explains how to assemble a fully functional SHG using readily available components. The software required to process the images is explained and step by step examples provided, with various digital instruments around the world highlighted based on input from many experienced amateurs who have shared their experience in building and using their spectroheliographs. The final chapters provide a historical overview of the traditional spectroheliograph and the later spectrohelioscope, from the initial G.E.Hale and Deslandres concepts of the 1890's through to the later work by Veio and others. The construction and performance of various instruments is covered in detail, and provides a unique opportunity to record and appreciate the groundbreaking researches carried out by amateurs in the 20th century. This is an absolutely up to date book which fully addresses the watershed, game changing influence of the digital imaging revolution on the traditional spectroheliograph.

This book presents research into chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defense and environmental security, exploring practical implications of the research. Contributions from a diverse group of international civilian researchers present the latest work on nanotechnology problems in this area, looking at detection, protective technologies, decontamination and threats to environmental security due to bacteriophages and nanomaterials. Highlights include the potential of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to characterize the nanoscale properties of microbial pathogens, the development of bacteriophage-based therapeutics, prophylactic and diagnostic preparations and their uses in different fields, such as medicine, veterinary, agriculture, food and water safety, amongst others. Readers may also consider an inexpensive bioassay suited for assessing chemical poisoning in the environment such as the presence of pesticides, sensors to detect ultra-trace quantities of the explosive Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) using nanotubes and electrochemical sensors to simultaneously detect and reduce the explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) to 2,4,6-triaminotoluene (TAT) in solution. This book shows how cooperative research among NATO countries and NATO partners can make a critical contribution to meeting the opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology problems relevant to chemical and biological defense needs. The papers presented here are representative of contributions made to the Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on September 22-26, 2014 in Antalya, Turkey, to address the NATO SPS Key Priority of Defense against CBRN Agents and Environmental Security.

This book highlights the basics of crystal optics methods and refractive index (RI) measurement techniques in various solids, as well as their scientific and technological applications. In addition to new techniques for cases when traditional techniques are impractical, such as for highly refracting powders, anomalous dispersion of light in the studied solid, or for colloids, it also describes conventional methods of RI measurement.

Colloidal nanocrystals show much promise as an optoelectronics architecture due to facile control over electronic properties afforded by chemical control of size, shape, and heterostructure. Unfortunately, realizing practical devices has been forestalled by the ubiquitous presence of charge "trap" states which compete with band-edge excitons and result in limited device efficiencies. Little is known about the defining characteristics of these traps, making engineered strategies for their removal difficult. This thesis outlines pulsed optically detected magnetic resonance as a powerful spectroscopy of the chemical and electronic nature of these deleterious states. Counterintuitive for such heavy atom materials, some trap species possess very long spin coherence lifetimes (up to 1.6 s). This quality allows use of the trapped charge's magnetic moment as a local probe of the trap state itself and its local environment. Beyond state characterization, this spectroscopy can demonstrate novel effects in heterostructured nanocrystals, such as spatially-remote readout of spin information and the coherent control of light harvesting yield.

The 6th International Conference on Laser Probing (LAP2012) had been held in Paris at the Institut Henri Poincare. It highlighted the state of the art in Laser Probing and reinforced the common ground and synergies among the different actors in the field. The Institut de Physique Nucleaire d'Orsay and the Grand Accelerateur National d'Ions Lourds in Caen had been in charge of the organization of this event, co-sponsored by the Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and the Laboratory Physique des 2 Infinis et des Origines (P2IO). Previously published as special issue of Hyperfine Interactions, vol. 216, 1-3.

This book covers the Resistivity Recovery (RR) technique, underlying its physical principles, performance and problematic. A concise review on the state of the art is provided, showing the advances in radiation modelling, linking both experimental and theoretical fields. The reader will find a data compilation and comparison of up-to-date results obtained from the European Fusion Development Agreement model alloys.

This concise book offers an essential introduction and reference guide for the many newcomers to the field of physics of elemental 2D materials. Silicene and related materials are currently among the most actively studied materials, especially following the first experimental synthesis on substrates in 2012. Accordingly, this primer introduces and reviews the most crucial developments regarding silicene from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. At the same time the reader is guided through the extensive body of relevant foundational literature. The text starts with a brief history of silicene, followed by a comparison of the bonding nature in silicon versus carbon atoms. Here, a simple but robust framework is established to help the reader follow the concepts presented throughout the book. The book then presents the atomic and electronic structure of free-standing silicene, followed by an account of the experimental realization of silicene on substrates. This topic is subsequently developed further to discuss various reconstructions that silicene acquires due to interactions with the substrate and how such effects are mirrored in the electronic properties. Next the book examines the dumbbell structure that is the key to understanding the growth mechanism and atomic structure of multilayer silicene. Last but not least, it addresses similar effects in other elemental 2D materials from group IV (germanene, stanane), group V (phosphorene) and group III (borophene), as well as transition metal dichalcogenides and other compositions, so as to provide a general comparative overview of their electronic properties.

Photochromism is the reversible phototransformation of a chemical species between two forms having different absorption spectra. During the phototransformation not only the absorption spectra but also various physicochemical properties change, such as the refractive index, dielectric constant, oxidation/reduction potential, and geometrical structure. The property changes can be applied to photonic equipment such as erasable memory media, photo-optical switch components, and display devices. This book compiles the accomplishments of the research project titled "New Frontiers in Photochromism" supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. The project focused not only on the above-mentioned classical subjects in photochromism, such as color changes, optical memory, and optical switches, but also on fundamental physicochemical studies and unprecedented application fields that have not yet been explored in photochromism. The latter topics include light-driven mechanical motion, photocontrol of surface wettability, metal deposition on solid materials, photocontrol of chiral properties, ultrafast decoloration dyes, and femtosecond laser experiments, among others.

This book presents the latest advances in ultrafast science, including both ultrafast optical technology and the study of ultrafast phenomena. It covers picosecond, femtosecond, and attosecond processes relevant to applications in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. Ultrafast technology has a profound impact in a wide range of applications, amongst them biomedical imaging, chemical dynamics, frequency standards, material processing, and ultrahigh-speed communications. This book summarizes the results presented at the 19th International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena and provides an up-to-date view of this important and rapidly advancing field.

The development of linear-scaling density functional theory (LS-DFT) has made ab initio calculations on systems containing thousands of atoms possible. These systems range from nanostructures to biomolecules. These methods rely on the use of localized basis sets, which are optimised for the representation of occupied Kohn-Sham states but do not guarantee an accurate representation of the unoccupied states. This is problematic if one wishes to combine the power of LS-DFT with that of theoretical spectroscopy, which provides a direct link between simulation and experiment. In this work a new method is presented for optimizing localized functions to accurately represent the unoccupied states, thus allowing theoretical spectroscopy of large systems. Results are presented for optical absorption spectra calculated using the ONETEP code, but the method is equally applicable to other spectroscopies and LS formulations. Other topics covered include a study of some simple one dimensional basis sets and the presentation of two methods for band structure calculation using localized basis sets, both of which have important implications for the use of localized basis sets within LS-DFT.

High-temperature and high-pressure treatment of diamond is becoming an important technology to elaborate diamonds. This is the first book providing a comprehensive review of the properties of HPHT-treated diamonds, based on the analysis of published data and the work of the authors. The book gives a detailed analysis of the physics of transformation of internal structures of diamonds subjected to HPHT treatment and discusses how these transformations can be detected using methods of optical microscopy and spectroscopy. It also gives practical recommendations for the recognition of HPHT-treated diamonds. The book is written in a language and terms which can be understood by a broad audience of physicists, mineralogists and gemologists.

This book explores the mechanism of alkali-metal ion/molecule association reaction, surveys the instrumental basis to study its kinetic, and describes the instrumentation to the measurement of alkali-metal ion affinities. The applications of the ion complexation mechanism in the condensed phase in reaction to direct analysis MS are also covered. Other topics include mechanism and reaction rate, experimental and theoretical ion affinities, applications of ion attachment reactions (IAR) to mass spectrometry such as alkali ion CIMS, ion attachment MS and cationization mass spectrometry of ESI, FAB, FD, LD, MALDI and SIMS and topics of IAR-based direct analysis mass spectrometry.

This thesis examines various aspects of excess excitation energy dissipation via dynamic changes in molecular structure, vibrational modes and solvation. The computational work is carefully described and the results are compared to experimental data obtained using femtosecond spectroscopy and x-ray scattering. The level of agreement between theory and experiment is impressive and provides both a convincing validation of the method and significant new insights into the chemical dynamics and molecular determinants of the experimental data. Hence, the method presented in the thesis has the potential to become a very important contribution to the rapidly growing field of femtosecond x-ray science, a trend reflected in the several free-electron x-ray lasers (XFELs) currently being built around the world. Light-induced chemical processes are accompanied by molecular motion of electrons and nuclei on the femtosecond time scale. Uncovering these dynamics is central to our understanding of the chemical reaction on a fundamental level. Asmus O. Dohn has implemented a highly efficient QM/MM Direct Dynamics method for predicting the solvation dynamics of transition metal complexes in solution.

This thesis reports on the development of the first quantum enhanced microscope and on its applications in biological microscopy. The first quantum particle-tracking microscope, described in detail here, represents a pioneering advance in quantum microscopy, which is shown to be a powerful and relevant technique for future applications in science and medicine. The microscope is used to perform the first quantum-enhanced biological measurements -- a central and long-standing goal in the field of quantum measurement. Sub diffraction-limited quantum imaging is achieved, also for the first time, with a scanning probe imaging configuration allowing 10-nanometer resolution.

This thesis combines highly accurate optical spectroscopy data on the recently discovered iron-based high-temperature superconductors with an incisive theoretical analysis. Three outstanding results are reported: (1) The superconductivity-induced modification of the far-infrared conductivity of an iron arsenide with minimal chemical disorder is quantitatively described by means of a strong-coupling theory for spin fluctuation mediated Cooper pairing. The formalism developed in this thesis also describes prior spectroscopic data on more disordered compounds. (2) The same materials exhibit a sharp superconductivity-induced anomaly for photon energies around 2.5 eV, two orders of magnitude larger than the superconducting energy gap. The author provides a qualitative interpretation of this unprecedented observation, which is based on the multiband nature of the superconducting state. (3) The thesis also develops a comprehensive description of a superconducting, yet optically transparent iron chalcogenide compound. The author shows that this highly unusual behavior can be explained as a result of the nanoscopic coexistence of insulating and superconducting phases, and he uses a combination of two complementary experimental methods - scanning near-field optical microscopy and low-energy muon spin rotation - to directly image the phase coexistence and quantitatively determine the phase composition. These data have important implications for the interpretation of data from other experimental probes.

This thesis investigates the transitions from one electronically excited state to another. Such processes - the fastest of events in chemistry - can be studied with femtosecond resolution, and Thomas S. Kuhlman approaches the question both with experimental and theoretical methods. His approach contributes to explain processes of high importance to all scientific fields concerned with the interaction between light and matter: the deactivation of the electronically excited states after excitation. Thomas S. Kuhlman concludes in this thesis that the electronic transition proceeds before the entire set of available degrees of freedom are active - 'It is as simple as that' !

Our understanding of the rheological and seismic properties of the Earth's interior relies on interpreting geophysical observations using mineral physics data. The complexity of natural materials complicates these interpretations, but here the key features of such materials in controlling the attenuation of seismic waves are determined by a set of careful experiments. This thesis clearly explains how dynamic mechanical spectroscopy has been used to determine the visco-elastic properties of igneous and sedimentary rocks containing geological fluids. These experiments highlight, for the first time, the importance of mineral and rock microstructures as controls on geophysical properties of solids, particularly near the melting point. The results have impacts in areas ranging from volcanic processes, through the structure of the deep Earth, to fluid-saturated porous media.

Practical Materials Characterization covers the most common materials analysis techniques in a single volume. It stands as a quick reference for experienced users, as a learning tool for students, and as a guide for the understanding of typical data interpretation for anyone looking at results from a range of analytical techniques. The book includes analytical methods covering microstructural, surface, morphological, and optical characterization of materials with emphasis on microscopic structural, electronic, biological, and mechanical properties. Many examples in this volume cover cutting-edge technologies such as nanomaterials and life sciences.

The book reviews the dramatic recent advances in the use of optical resonators for high sensitivity and high resolution molecular spectroscopy as well as for chemical, mechanical and physical sensing. It encompasses a variety of cavities including those made of two or more mirrors, optical fiber loops, fiber gratings and spherical cavities. The book focuses on novel techniques and their applications. Each chapter is written by an expert and/or pioneer in the field. These experts also provide the theoretical background in optics and molecular physics where needed. Examples of recent breakthroughs include the use of frequency combs (Nobel prize 2005) for cavity enhanced sensing and spectroscopy, the use of novel cavity materials and geometries, the development of optical heterodyne detection techniques combined to active frequency-locking schemes. These methods allow the use and interrogation of optical resonators with a variety of coherent light sources for trace gas detection and sensing of strain, temperature and pressure.