This book on mechanical microsensors is based on a course organized by the Swiss Foundation for Research in Microtechnology (FSRM) in Neuchatel, Swit zerland, and developed and taught by the authors. Support by FSRM is herewith gratefully acknowledged. This book attempts to serve two purposes. First it gives an overview on me chanical microsensors (sensors for pressure, force, acceleration, angular rate and fluid flow, realized by silicon micromachining). Second, it serves as a textbook for engineers to give them a comprehensive introduction on the basic design issues of these sensors. Engineers active in sensor design are usually educated either in electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. These classical educa tional pro grams do not prepare the engineer for the challenging task of sensor design since sensors are instruments typically bridging the disciplines: one needs a rather deep understanding of both mechanics and electronics. Accordingly, the book contains discussion of the basic engineering sciences relevant to mechanical sensors, hopefully in a way that it is accessible for all colours of engineers. Engi rd th neering students in their 3 or 4 year should have enough knowledge to be able to follow the arguments presented in this book. In this sense, this book should be useful as textbook for students in courses on mechanical microsensors (as is CUf rently being done at the University ofTwente)."

This is quite simply the first volume of its kind dedicated to the area of high time resolution astrophysics. High time resolution astrophysics (HTRA) is an important new window on the universe and a vital tool in understanding a range of phenomena from diverse objects and radiative processes. Underlining this science foundation, technological developments in both instrumentation and detectors are described.

Urban areas are major sources of air pollution. Pollutant emissions affecting air quality in cities are considered to have adverse consequences for human health. Public and government concern about environmental issues arising from urban air pollution has increased over the last decades. The urban air pollution problem is widespread throughout the world and it is important to find ways of eliminating or at least reducing the risks for human health. The fundamentals of the physical and chemical processes occurring during air pollutant transport in the atmosphere are nowadays understood to a large extent. In particular, modelling of such processes has experienced a remarkable growth in the last decades. Monitoring capabilities have also improved markedly in the most urban areas around the world. However, neither modelling nor monitoring can solve urban air pollution problems, as they are only a first step in improving useful information for future regulations. The defining of efficient control strategies can not be achieved without a clear knowledge of the complete pollution process, i.e. emission, atmospheric transport and transformation, and deposition at the receptor. Improving our ability to establish valid urban scale source-receptor relation ships has been the objective of SA TURN, one of the 14 subprojects of EURO TRAC-2. Similar to the other subprojects of this co-ordinated environmental pro ject within the EUREKA initiative, SA TURN brought together international groups of scientists to work on problems directly related to atmospheric chemistry and physics. The present volume summarises the scientific results of SATURN."

Authored by a team of acknowledged experts, this book presents a multidisciplinary view of the state of the art in the field of actuators. The goal of the book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the properties, applications, and potential applications of traditional and unconventional actuators, together with their corresponding power electronics. Special attention is paid to the objective assessment of competing actuator principles. The book is written primarily for designers and engineers in research and development, but will also be valuable as a textbook for students of automation engineering, mechatronics and adaptronics.

The reader shall find in the offered monograph a systematic presentation of scientific effects in the field of anisotropy studies reached by the author and his collaborators in the period of recent four decades: published and discussed in a number of papers and conference contributions. The central construction line of discussion is to be sought in the full and comprehensive analysis of ret: ) function defining the anisotropy coefficient varying during the tensile test. No doubt, this function can be considered as a nutshell carrier ofcomprehensive information about the essential features influencing the directionality of the studied material's plasticity. The function also provides the basis to elaborate methods used in the determination of such characteristics. In the historical presentation of literature in the field of plastic anisotropy, the original input was offered by W.M. Baldwin Jr., already in 1946, who observed the differentiated strain rates in three mutually perpendicular directions of the sample subjected to static tensile test. In the following years, further and expanded analysis of the problem was undertaken by Lankford, Hill, Gensamer, Jackson, Low and Smith.

This volume presents multidisciplinary treatments of important areas and new developments within precision physics. It concentrates on new topics and those not treated in the previous volumes about the precision physics of simple atoms, all published in LNP. For example, it concentrates on the proton structure and its effects on the energy levels, on simple molecules, on atoms somewhat more complicated than hydrogen (such as lithium), on exotic atoms and atoms with exotic nuclei.

The Analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) is the most pervasive block in electronic systems. With the advent of powerful digital signal processing and digital communication techniques, ADCs are fast becoming critical components for system's performance and flexibility. Knowing accurately all the parameters that characterise their dynamic behaviour is crucial, on one hand to select the most adequate ADC architecture and characteristics for each end application, and on the other hand, to understand how they affect performance bottlenecks in the signal processing chain.

Dynamic Characterisation of Analogue-to-Digital Converters presents a state of the art overview of the methods and procedures employed for characterising ADCs' dynamic performance behaviour using sinusoidal stimuli. The three classical methods - histogram, sine wave fitting, and spectral analysis - are thoroughly described, and new approaches are proposed to circumvent some of their limitations.

This is a must-have compendium, which can be used by both academics and test professionals to understand the fundamental mathematics underlining the algorithms of ADC testing, and as an handbook to help the engineer in the most important and critical details for their implementation.

Multiphase thermal systems have numerous applications in aerospace, heat-exchange, transport of contaminants in environmental systems, and energy transport and conversion systems. A reduced - or microgravity - environment provides an excellent tool for accurate study of the flow without the masking effects of gravity. This book presents for the first time a comprehensive coverage of all aspects of two-phase flow behaviour in the virtual absence of gravity.

Square-wave voltammetry is a technique readily available to every researcher, scientist, engineer and practitioner applying modern electrochemical measurement systems. It is of beneficial use in analytical applications and in fundamental studies of electrode mechanisms. But the optimised exploitation of this technique is only possible for those with a detailed knowledge of signal generation and of the thermodynamics and kinetics involved. This volume, written by three distinguished experts, systematically delivers the complete and in-depth information that enables both researchers and users of square-wave voltammetry to apply this technique effectively. Square-Wave Voltammetry also offers an appendix on mathematical modeling and a chapter on the most important electrode mechanisms which briefly reviews the underlying theory and numerical formulae intrinsic for simulating experiments with popular software tools, e.g. Mathcad (R).

The 2007 ESO Instrument Calibration workshop brought together more than 120 participants with the objective to a) foster the sharing of information, experience and techniques between observers, instrument developers and instrument operation teams, b) review the actual precision and limitations of the applied instrument calibration plans, and c) collect the current and future requirements by the ESO users.

These present proceedings include the majority of the workshop's contributions and document the status quo of instrument calibration at ESO in large detail. Topics covered are: Optical Spectro-Imagers, Optical Multi-Object Spectrographs, NIR and MIR Spectro-Imagers, High-Resolution Spectrographs, Integral Field Spectrographs, Adaptive Optics Instruments, Polarimetric Instruments, Wide Field Imagers, Interferometric Instruments as well as other crucial aspects such as data flow, quality control, data reduction software and atmospheric effects.

It was stated in the workshop that "calibration is a life-long learning process"'. In this sense, this book will be a reference point for all future efforts to improve instrument calibration procedures in astronomy.

The treatment of time in quantum mechanics is still an important and challenging open question in the foundation of the quantum theory.

This multi-authored book, written as an introductory guide for newcomers to the subject, as well as a useful source of information for the expert, covers many of the open questions. The book describes the problems, and the attempts and achievements in defining, formalizing and measuring different time quantities in quantum theory.

Fundamentals of Optical Fiber Sensor Technology The field of optical fiber sensors continues to expand and develop, being increasingly influenced by new applications of the technologies that have been the topics of research for some years. In this way, the subject continues to mature and reach into new areas of engineering. This text in the series on Optical Fiber Sensor Technology provides a foundation for a better understanding of those developments in the basic science and its applications in fiber sensors, underpinning the subject today. This book builds upon the work in an earlier single volume which covered a broad area of the subject, but which now, in this, volume 1 of the series, focuses upon the fundamentals and essentials of the technology. Material which is included has been carefully reviewed and in most cases thoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the current state of the subject, and provide an essential background for the more applications-oriented content of the subsequent volumes of the series. This volume opens with a status paper on optical fiber sensor technology, by Kenneth Grattan and Tong Sun providing in it a flavor of the main topics in the field and giving an essential overview at the sort of systems which are discussed in more detail in the other chapters in the whole series. An extensive publication list of readily accessible papers reflecting these topics is included.

This first book on pulsed magnet design deals with the design of pulsed, non-destructive coils for the generation of high magnetic fields. It provides readers with a concise and comprehensive text describing every aspect of coil construction.

This second edition is a thoroughly revised, updated and expanded version of a classic text, with lots of new material on electronic signal creation, amplification and shaping. It 's still a thorough general introduction, too, to the theory and operation of drift chambers. The topics discussed include the basics of gas ionization, electronic drift and signal creation and discuss in depth the fundamental limits of accuracy and the issue of particle identification.

In a ?rst approximation, certainly rough, one can de?ne as non-crystalline materials those which are neither single-crystals nor poly-crystals. Within this category, we canincludedisorderedsolids, softcondensed matter, andlivesystemsamong others. Contrary to crystals, non-crystalline materials have in common that their intrinsic structures cannot be exclusively described by a discrete and periodical function but by a continuous function with short range of order. Structurally these systems have in common the relevance of length scales between those de?ned by the atomic and the macroscopic scale. In a simple ?uid, for example, mobile molecules may freely exchange their positions, so that their new positions are permutations of their old ones. By contrast, in a complex ?uid large groups of molecules may be interc- nected so that the permutation freedom within the group is lost, while the p- mutation between the groups is possible. In this case, the dominant characteristic length, which may de?ne the properties of the system, is not the molecular size but that of the groups. A central aspect of some non-crystalline materials is that they may self-organize. This is of particular importance for Soft-matter materials. Self-organization is characterized by the spontaneous creation of regular structures at different length scales which may exhibit a certain hierarchy that controls the properties of the system. X-ray scattering and diffraction have been for more than a hundred years an essential technique to characterize the structure of materials. Quite often scattering anddiffractionphenomenaexhibitedbynon-crystallinematerialshavebeenreferred to as non-crystalline diffractio

A translation of a successful Russian monograph, this is the first book dealing comprehensively and on a scientific level with the insulation of high-voltage electrophysical systems. Prof. Ushakov is a respected authority in this field.

Storageandcoolingtechniquesforchargedparticlesgainmoreandmoreimportance in various areas of modern science. They developed into a universal tool especially when used for precision measurements. For this purpose, there are mainly two types ofiontrapsinuse: radiofrequency quadrupole (Paul)trapswhichuseatime-varying quadrupolar electric ?eld applied to the electrodes for con?nement and Penning traps where a superposition of a homogeneous magnetic ?eld with a weak el- trostatic quadrupolar ?eld is used. Already the very ?rst experiments in ion traps, performed by their inventors Wolfgang Paul and Hans Dehmelt, paved the way for astonishingly precise measurements of fundamental quantities like the electron and positron g-factors and the ?ne-structure constant ?. Their work was honored with the Nobel Prize in physics for "the development of the ion trap technique" in 1989. Sincethenmanyexperimental physicistsworldwidehavebeenusinganddeveloping different kinds of ion traps. Today, ion traps are applied widely for instance in mass spectrometry, metrology, plasma physics, molecular and cluster physics, quantum computing, atomic and nuclear physics as well as in chemistry. Precise investigations are able to link measurable quantities to fundamental - pects of physics. Due to the achievable precision, ion traps have been used for this subjectandattractedaconferenceseries"TrappedChargedParticlesandFundam- tal Interactions." Along the main idea of that conference we organized a Heraeus Winter School that took place in Hirschegg, Austria, in spring 2006. Inspired by the success and the interest from the students we planned a book that should contain the key components of the school: interesting, introductory and up-to-date lectures connected with ion traps.

Speckle photography is an advanced experimental technique used for quantitatve determination of density, velocity and temperature fields in gas, liquid, and plasma flows. This book presents the most important equations for the diffraction theory of speckle formation and the statistical properties of speckle fields. It also describes experimental set-ups and the equipment needed to implement these methods. Speckle photography methods for automatic data acquisition and processing are considered and examples for their use are given.

This book brings together contributions from internationally renowned experts in the biochip field. The authors present not only their latest research work, but also discuss current trends in biochip technology. Specific topics range from microarray technology and its applications to lab-on-a-chip technology.

This book is intended for scientists and engineers in the field of micro- and nano electro-mechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) and introduces the development of cantilever-based sensor systems using CMOS-compatible micromachining from the design concepts and simulations to the prototype. It is also a useful resource for researchers on cantilever sensors and resonant sensors in general The reader will become familiar with the potential of the combination of two technological approaches: IC fabrication technology, notably CMOS technology, and silicon micromachining and the resulting microstructures such as cantilever beams. It was recognized early that these two technologies should be merged in order to make the microstructures smart and devise integrated microsystems with on-chip driving and signal conditioning circuitry - now known as CMOS MEMS or, with the arrival of nanostructures, CMOS NEMS. One way to achieve the merger is the post-processing micro- or nano- machining of finished CMOS wafers, some of which is described in this book. The book introduces this approach based on work carried out at the Physical Electronics Laboratory of ETH Zurich on arrays of cantilever transducers with on-chip driving and signal conditioning circuitry. These cantilevers are familiar from Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) and allow the sensitive detection of phys ical quantities such as forces and mass changes. The book is divided into three parts. First, general aspects of cantilever resona tors are introduced, e. g. their resonant behavior and possible driving and sensing mechanisms."

Here is a new method for calculating heat transfer in coupled convective-conductive fluid-wall systems under periodical intensity oscillations in fluid flow. The true steady state mean value of the heat transfer coefficient must be multiplied by a newly defined coupling factor, which is always smaller than one and depends on the coupling parameters Biot number, Fourier number as well as dimensionless geometry and oscillation parameters. Includes characteristic solved problems, with tables and diagrams.

Research in the field of shock physics and ballistic impact has always been intimately tied to progress in development of facilities for accelerating projectiles to high velocity and instrumentation for recording impact phenomena. The chapters of this book, written by leading US and European experts, cover a broad range of topics and address researchers concerned with questions of material behaviour under impulsive loading and the equations of state of matter, as well as the design of suitable instrumentation such as gas guns and high-speed diagnostics. Applications include high-speed impact dynamics, the inner composition of planets, syntheses of new materials and materials processing. Among the more technologically oriented applications treated is the testing of the flight characteristics of aeroballistic models and the assessment of impacts in the aerospace industry.

This book recounts results obtained via the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) on comets, in the close environment of pre-main sequence stars, in the interstellar medium, and in the final stages of stellar life, using molecular hydrogen, ubiquitous crystalline silicates, water and ices. ISO has enabled investigation of the fuelling mechanism of galaxies, and new understanding of luminous infrared galaxies and their role in shaping present galaxies and in producing the cosmic infrared background.

The first edition of this book demystified the process of well log analysis for students, researchers and practitioners. In the two decades since, the industry has changed enormously: technical staffs are smaller, and hydrocarbons are harder to locate, quantify, and produce. New drilling techniques have engendered new measurement devices incorporated into the drilling string. Corporate restructuring and the "graying" of the workforce have caused a scarcity in technical competence involved in the search and exploitation of petroleum. The updated 2nd Edition reviews logging measurement technology developed in the last twenty years, and expands the petrophysical applications of the measurements.

This book offers a concise presentation of theoretical concepts characterizing and quantifying the slowing down of swift heavy ions in matter. Although the penetration of charged particles through matter has been studied for almost a hundred years, the quantitative theory for swift penetrating ions heavier than helium has been developed mainly during the past decade and is still progressing rapidly. The book addresses scientists and engineers working at accelerators with an interest in materials analysis and modification, medical diagnostics and therapy, mass spectrometry and radiation damage, as well as atomic and nuclear physicists. Although not a textbook, this monograph represents a unique source of state-of-the-art information that is useful to a university teacher in any course involving the interaction of charged particles with matter.