Drawing a picture of the current situation of this new field, this volume both summarizes the past achievements and analyzes the present unsolved problems.

When presented with a new compound or material, the inorganic chemist will usually have several questions in mind about its composition and structure. Although a simple elemental analysis may answer many questions about its composition, the chemist will still have questions about its structure, and, ifthe material contains a metal atom, he will often want to know its oxidation state, coordination number and geometry. Further, at an increasingly frequent rate, the chemist may need details of the spin state, magnetic and perhaps dynamic properties of the material. If the investigator is fortunate, the material or compound may contain an ele ment such as iron, tin, antimony, iodine, gold, or one of several of the rare earth metals which are amenable to study by the Mossbauer effect. Often the Mossbauer effect can, sometimes with quite simple experiments, provide the answers to all of these questions. The goal of this book is to illustrate the effectiveness of the Mossbauer effect in providing the answers to the many questions that arise in char acterizing new materials and, indeed, in studying known materials in more detail. Several chapters introduce the effect to the novice and provide details about the various hyperfine interactions that are the "bread and butter" of the Mossbauer spectroscopist. Three chapters deal specifically with the experimental aspects of the technique and the increasing impor tance of sophisticated computer analysis of the resulting data."

This book arose from a symposium titled 'Transition Metal Carbides and Nitrides: Preparation, Properties, and Reactivity' organized by Jae Sung Lee, Masatoshi Nagai and myself. The symposium was part of the 1995 Congress of Pacific Rim Chemical Societies, held in Honolulu, Hawaii between December 17-22, 1995. The meeting was the first major conference to exclusively address the theme of metal carbides and nitrides, and brought together many of the major researchers in the field. Over 50 scientists and engineers reported their latest findings in five sessions of presentations and discussions. The book closely follows the topics covered in the conference: Theory of bonding Structure and composition Catalytic properties Physical properties New methods of preparation Spectroscopy and microscopy The book is unique in its coverage. It provides a general introduction to the properties and nature of the materials, but also covers their latest applications in a wide variety of fields. It should thus be of interest to both experts and nonexperts in the fields of material science, solid-state chemistry, physics, ceramics engineering, and catalysis. The first chapter gives an overview, and many of the chapters provide summaries of advanced topics. All contributions were peer-reviewed.

Molecular Beam Epitaxy describes a technique in wide-spread use for the production of high-quality semiconductor devices. It discusses the most important aspects of the MBE apparatus, the physics and chemistry of the crystallization of various materials and device structures, and the characterization methods that relate the structural parameters of the grown (or growing) film or structure to the technologically relevant procedure. In this second edition two new fields have been added: crystallization of as-grown low-dimensional heterostructures, mainly quantum wires and quantum dots, and in-growth control of the MBE crystallization process of strained-layer structures. Out-of-date material has been removed.

Metal-arene pi-complexes show a rich and varied chemistry. The metal adds a third dimension to the planar aromatic compounds and coordination of a metal to an arene thus not only altering the reactivity of ring-carbons and substituents but also makes possible reactions that lead to chiral non-racemic products. This book, organized in nine chapters and written by leading scientists in the field provides the reader with an up-to-date treatise on the subject organized according to reaction type and use. It covers the wide spectrum of arene activation: from the electrophilic activation of h6-bound arene by pi-Lewis acid metal complex fragments, to reactions of nucleophilic h2-coordinated arene complexes. The preparation of complexes is detailed, as are the scope, limitations and challenges of reactions in contemporary pi-arene metal chemistry with special attention given to asymmetric transformations. The emphasis of the book is on transformations of interest to organic synthesis and on the use of the complexes as catalysts or as chiral ligands.
The book is written for academic and industrial researchers in organic, organometallic, and inorganic chemistry as well as for advanced chemistry students.

Two decades have passed since the original discovery of recoilless nuclear gamma resonance by Rudolf Mossbauer; the spectroscopic method based on this resonance effect - referred to as Mossbauer spectroscopy - has developed into a powerful tool in solid-state research. The users are chemists, physicists, biologists, geologists, and scientists from other disciplines, and the spectrum of problems amenable to this method has become extraordinarily broad. In the present volume we have confined ourselves to applications of Mossbauer spectroscopy to the area of transition elements. We hope that the book will be useful not only to non-Mossbauer special ists with problem-Oriented activities in the chemistry and physics of transition elements, but also to those actively working in the field of Mossbauer spectroscopy on systems (compounds as well as alloys) of transition elements. The first five chapters are directed to introducing the reader who is not familiar with the technique to the principles of the recoilless nuclear resonance effect, the hyperfme interactions between nuclei and electronic properties such as electric and magnetic fields, some essential aspects about measurements, and the evaluation of Moss bauer spectra. Chapter 6 deals with the interpretation of Mossbauer parameters of iron compounds. Here we have placed emphasis on the information about the electronic structure, in correlation with quantum chemical methods, because of its importance for chemical bonding and magnetic properties."

In this brief, renowned inorganic chemist Jay Labinger tracks the development of his field from a forgotten specialism to the establishment of an independent, intellectually viable discipline. Inorganic chemistry, with a negation in its very name, was long regarded as that which was left behind when organic and physical chemistry emerged as specialist fields in the 19th century. Only by the middle of the 20th century had it begun to gain its current stature of equality to that of the other main branches of chemistry. The author discusses the evidence for this transition, both quantitative and anecdotal and includes consideration of the roles of local and personal factors, with particular focus on Caltech as an illustrative example. This brief is of interest both to historians of science and inorganic chemists who would like to find out how their field began.