This book explores the application of external physical fields to the solidification processing of metallic alloys. Leading academics from around the world present comprehensive and critical reviews on state-of-the-art research and discuss possible future directions. Major physical fields, including electromagnetic, electric, acoustic, and thermal, are considered. In addition, the most advanced synchrotron X-ray based real-time and in-situ studies and numerical modeling methodologies are reviewed and discussed, with a special emphasis on their applications to the solidification processes. Throughout, all chapters are illustrated with both historical and very recent research cases, including typical examples of in-situ studies, modeling, and simulation. This book contains essential knowledge and information suitable for a wide audience, from undergraduate and postgraduate students to academics, practicing researchers, and engineers in materials, metallurgy, and manufacturing.

This thesis describes significant advances in experimental capabilities using ultracold polar molecules. While ultracold polar molecules are an idyllic platform for quantum chemistry and quantum many-body physics, molecular samples prior to this work failed to be quantum degenerate, were plagued by chemical reactions, and lacked any evidence of many-body physics. These limitations were overcome by loading molecules into an optical lattice to control and eliminate collisions and hence chemical reactions. This led to observations of many-body spin dynamics using rotational states as a pseudo-spin, and the realization of quantum magnetism with long-range interactions and strong many-body correlations. Further, a 'quantum synthesis' technique based on atomic insulators allowed the author to increase the filling fraction of the molecules in the lattice to 30%, a substantial advance which corresponds to an entropy-per-molecule entering the quantum degenerate regime and surpasses the so-called percolations threshold where long-range spin propagation is expected. Lastly, this work describes the design, construction, testing, and implementation of a novel apparatus for controlling polar molecules. It provides access to: high-resolution molecular detection and addressing; large, versatile static electric fields; and microwave-frequency electric fields for driving rotational transitions with arbitrary polarization. Further, the yield of molecules in this apparatus has been demonstrated to exceed 10^5, which is a substantial improvement beyond the prior apparatus, and an excellent starting condition for direct evaporative cooling to quantum degeneracy.

This book investigates the common nature of granular and active systems, which is rooted in their intrinsic out-of-equilibrium behavior, with the aim of finding minimal models able to reproduce and predict the complex collective behavior observed in experiments and simulations. Granular and active matter are among the most studied systems in out-of-equilibrium statistical physics. The book guides readers through the derivation of a fluctuating hydrodynamic description of granular and active matter by means of controlled and transparent mathematical assumptions made on a lattice model. It also shows how a macroscopic description can be provided from microscopic requirements, leading to the prediction of collective states such as cooling, swarming, clustering and the transitions among them. The analytical and numerical results shed new light on the physical connection between the local, microscopic properties of few particles and the macroscopic collective motion of the whole system.

This PhD thesis characterises the damage that occurs in tungsten when it is exposed to a fusion-like environment. The book presents pioneering work on the use of grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) to measure nano-bubble formation in tungsten exposed to helium plasma. The phenomenon of nanoscale bubble formation within metals during helium plasma exposure can lead to undesirable changes in the material properties, such as complex nanoscale surface modification or a reduction in thermal conductivity. As a result of this work, it is now possible to quantify how nanobubble behaviour changes within different materials, and under different plasma conditions. In 2015 the author published the first GISAXS study of helium-induced nanobubble formation in tungsten, demonstrating the viability of using GISAXS for this work. This paper has generated significant interest from the international fusion community and was selected as one of the highlights for the journal Nuclear Fusion.

Advances in understanding the interactions between light and subwavelength materials have enabled the author and his collaborators to tailor unique optical responses at the nanoscale. In particular, metallic nanostructures capable of supporting surface plasmons can be designed to possess spectrally narrow plasmon resonances, which are of particular interest due to their exceptional sensitivity to their local environment. In turn, combining plasmonic nanostructures with other materials in hybrid systems allows this sensitivity to be exploited in a broad range of applications. In this book the author explores two different approaches to attaining narrow plasmon resonances: in gold nanoparticle arrays by utilising diffraction coupling, and in copper thin films covered by a protective graphene layer. The performance of these resonances is then considered in a number of applications. Nanoparticle arrays are used along with an atomic heterostructure as elements in a nanomechanical electro-optical modulator that is capable of strong, broadband modulation. Strong coupling between diffraction-coupled plasmon resonances and a gold nanoparticle array and guided modes in a dielectric slab is used to construct a hybrid waveguide. Lastly, the extreme phase sensitivity of graphene-protected copper is used to detect trace quantities of small toxins in solution far below the detection limit of commercial surface plasmon resonance sensors.

After decades of dominance of genetics and genomics, the importance of structural biology is growing exponentially in the field of plant biology. The main objectives of this new book series is to "demystify" structural biology for plant researchers and to provide important insights into the basic molecular mechanisms underlying plant development through the diverse approaches utilized by structural biologists. The book series starts with a theme dedicated to hormonal signaling that has benefited from the application of structural biology. "Plant Structural Biology: Hormonal Regulations" provides up-to-date knowledge of the structural aspects of hormonal signal recognition, signal transduction, hormonal control of downstream regulatory pathways and hormonal crosstalk. The most distinctive features of this book as well as future titles is/will be to provide overview of cutting-edge research in the field of plant structural biology, and to serve as a compendium of various approaches that could be applied to problems being solved in modern plant biology. Last but not least, we hope this book will facilitate and broaden the community of (not only) plant scientists who are interested in structural biology approaches and tools. For these reasons, the style of this series is concise and general, in order to avoiding unnecessary details. Explanatory boxes describing the basics of specific approaches (e.g. X-ray crystallography, NMR, SAXS, molecular dynamics simulations, etc.) are included.

This thesis focuses on the energy band engineering of graphene. It presents pioneering findings on the controlled growth of graphene and graphene-based heterostructures, as well as scanning tunneling microscopy/scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STM/STS) studies on their electronic structures. The thesis primarily investigates two classes of graphene-based systems: (i) twisted bilayer graphene, which was synthesized on Rh substrates and manifests van Hove singularities near Fermi Level, and (ii) in-plane h-BN-G heterostructures, which were controllably synthesized in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber and demonstrate intriguing electronic properties on the interface. In short, the thesis offers revealing insights into the energy band engineering of graphene-based nanomaterials, which will greatly facilitate future graphene applications.

Experimental advances in helium atom scattering spectroscopy over the last forty years have allowed the measurement of surface phonon dispersion curves of more than 200 different crystal surfaces and overlayers of insulators, semiconductors and metals. The first part of the book presents, at a tutorial level, the fundamental concepts and methods in surface lattice dynamics, and the theory of atom-surface interaction and inelastic scattering in their various approximations, up to the recent electron-phonon theory of helium atom scattering from conducting surfaces. The second part of the book, after introducing the experimentalist to He-atom spectrometers and the rich phenomenology of helium atom scattering from corrugated surfaces, illustrates the most significant experimental results on the surface phonon dispersion curves of various classes of insulators, semiconductors, metals, layered crystals, topological insulators, complex surfaces, adsorbates, ultra-thin films and clusters. The great potential of helium atom scattering for the study of atomic scale diffusion, THz surface collective excitations, including acoustic surface plasmons, and the future prospects of helium atom scattering are presented in the concluding chapters. The book will be valuable reading for all researchers and graduate students interested in dynamical processes at surfaces.

The book addresses several aspects of thermodynamics and correlations in the strongly-interacting regime of one-dimensional bosons, a topic at the forefront of current theoretical and experimental studies. Strongly correlated systems of one-dimensional bosons have a long history of theoretical study. Their experimental realisation in ultracold atom experiments is the subject of current research, which took off in the early 2000s. Yet these experiments raise new theoretical questions, just begging to be answered. Correlation functions are readily available for experimental measurements. In this book, they are tackled by means of sophisticated theoretical methods developed in condensed matter physics and mathematical physics, such as bosonization, the Bethe Ansatz and conformal field theory. Readers are introduced to these techniques, which are subsequently used to investigate many-body static and dynamical correlation functions.

This book summarizes the most recent and compelling experimental results for complex oxide interfaces. The results of this book were obtained with the cutting-edge photoemission technique at highest energy resolution. Due to their fascinating properties for new-generation electronic devices and the challenge of investigating buried regions, the book chiefly focuses on complex oxide interfaces. The crucial feature of exploring buried interfaces is the use of soft X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) operating on the energy range of a few hundred eV to increase the photoelectron mean free path, enabling the photons to penetrate through the top layers - in contrast to conventional ultraviolet (UV)-ARPES techniques. The results presented here, achieved by different research groups around the world, are summarized in a clearly structured way and discussed in comparison with other photoemission spectroscopy techniques and other oxide materials. They are complemented and supported by the most recent theoretical calculations as well as results of complementary experimental techniques including electron transport and inelastic resonant X-ray scattering.

In this book, the author describes the development of the experimental diffraction setup and structural analysis of non-crystalline particles from material science and biology. Recent advances in X-ray free electron laser (XFEL)-coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI) experiments allow for the structural analysis of non-crystalline particles to a resolution of 7 nm, and to a resolution of 20 nm for biological materials. Now XFEL-CXDI marks the dawn of a new era in structural analys of non-crystalline particles with dimensions larger than 100 nm, which was quite impossible in the 20th century. To conduct CXDI experiments in both synchrotron and XFEL facilities, the author has developed apparatuses, named KOTOBUKI-1 and TAKASAGO-6 for cryogenic diffraction experiments on frozen-hydrated non-crystalline particles at around 66 K. At the synchrotron facility, cryogenic diffraction experiments dramatically reduce radiation damage of specimen particles and allow tomography CXDI experiments. In addition, in XFEL experiments, non-crystalline particles scattered on thin support membranes and flash-cooled can be used to efficiently increase the rate of XFEL pulses. The rate, which depends on the number density of scattered particles and the size of X-ray beams, is currently 20-90%, probably the world record in XFEL-CXDI experiments. The experiment setups and results are introduced in this book. The author has also developed software suitable for efficiently processing of diffraction patterns and retrieving electron density maps of specimen particles based on the diffraction theory used in CXDI.

This book covers key theoretical and practical aspects of optics, photonics and lasers. It addresses optical instrumentation and metrology, photonic and optoelectronic materials and devices, nanophotonics, organic and bio-photonics and high-field phenomena. Researchers, engineers, students and practitioners interested in any of these fields will find a wealth of new methods, technologies, advanced prototypes, systems, tools and techniques, as well as general surveys outlining future directions.

This book presents a comprehensive and unifying approach to analytical identification of material properties of biological materials. Focusing on depth-sensing indentation testing, pipette aspiration testing, and torsion of soft tissues, it discusses the following important aspects in detail: damping, adhesion, thickness effect, substrate effect, elastic inhomogeneity effect, and biphasic effect. This book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers in the area of biomechanics as well as for biomedical engineers interested in contact problems and involved in inverse materials parameters prediction analysis.

This book explores new experimental phase diagrams of non-oxide ceramics, with a particular focus on the silicon nitride, silicon carbide and aluminum nitride, as well as the ultra-high temperature ceramic (UHTC) systems. It features more than 80 experimental phase diagrams of these non-oxide ceramics, including three phase diagrams of UHTC systems, constructed by the authors. Physical chemistry data covering the period since the 1970s, collected by the author Z.K.Huang, is presented in six tables in the appendixes. It also includes 301 figures involving about 150 material systems. Most of the phase diagrams have been selected from the ACerS-NIST database with copyright permission. The book methodically presents numerous diagrams previously scattered in various journals and conferences worldwide. Providing extensive experimental data, it is a valuable reference resource on ceramics development and design for academic researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students.

This book presents extensive information on the mechanisms of epitaxial growth in III-nitride compounds, drawing on a state-of-the-art computational approach that combines ab initio calculations, empirical interatomic potentials, and Monte Carlo simulations to do so. It discusses important theoretical aspects of surface structures and elemental growth processes during the epitaxial growth of III-nitride compounds. In addition, it discusses advanced fundamental structural and electronic properties, surface structures, fundamental growth processes and novel behavior of thin films in III-nitride semiconductors. As such, it will appeal to all researchers, engineers and graduate students seeking detailed information on crystal growth and its application to III-nitride compounds.

This book describes and contextualises collisionless plasma theory, and in particular collisionless plasma equilibria. The Vlasov-Maxwell theory of collisionless plasmas is an increasingly important tool for modern plasma physics research: our ability to sustain plasma in a steady-state, and to mitigate instabilities, determines the success of thermonuclear fusion power plants on Earth; and our understanding of plasma aids in the prediction and mitigation of Space Weather effects on terrestrial environments and satellites. Further afield, magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous energy release mechanism throughout the Universe, and modern satellites are now able to make in-situ measurements with kinetic scale resolution. To keep pace with these challenges and technological developments, a modern scientific discussion of plasma physics must enhance, and exploit, its 'literacy' in kinetic theory. For example, accurate analytical calculations and computer simulations of kinetic instabilities are predicated on a knowledge of Vlasov-Maxwell equilibria as an initial condition. This book highlights new fundamental work on Vlasov-Maxwell equilibria, of potential interest to mathematicians and physicists alike. Possible applications involve two of the most significant magnetic structures known to confine plasma and store energy: current sheets and flux tubes.

This thesis focuses on the design and synthesis of novel one-dimensional colloidal chalcogenide hetero-nanostructures for enhancing solar energy conversion applications. Semiconducting nanomaterials are particular attractive for energy conversion due to the quantum confinement effects dictating their unique optical and electronic properties. Steering the photo-induced charge-flow based on unique bandgap alignment in semiconductor heterojunctions is critical for photo-electric/chemical conversion. The author presents the controllable preparation strategies to synthesize 1D chalcogenide hetero-nanostructures with various fine structures, further been used as excellent template materials for preparing other novel and complex hybrid architectures through a series of chemical transformations. The heterogeneous growth mechanisms of novel hetero-nanostructures is studied for developing a facile and general method to prepare more novel heterostructures. The band gap structure simulations, detailed charge carrier behaviour and unique solar energy conversion properties of the prepared hybrid nanostructures are deeply investigated. This work would open a new door to rationally designing hybrid systems for photo-induced applications.

This book presents an in-depth treatment of various mathematical aspects of electromagnetism and Maxwell's equations: from modeling issues to well-posedness results and the coupled models of plasma physics (Vlasov-Maxwell and Vlasov-Poisson systems) and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). These equations and boundary conditions are discussed, including a brief review of absorbing boundary conditions. The focus then moves to well-posedness results. The relevant function spaces are introduced, with an emphasis on boundary and topological conditions. General variational frameworks are defined for static and quasi-static problems, time-harmonic problems (including fixed frequency or Helmholtz-like problems and unknown frequency or eigenvalue problems), and time-dependent problems, with or without constraints. They are then applied to prove the well-posedness of Maxwell's equations and their simplified models, in the various settings described above. The book is completed with a discussion of dimensionally reduced models in prismatic and axisymmetric geometries, and a survey of existence and uniqueness results for the Vlasov-Poisson, Vlasov-Maxwell and MHD equations. The book addresses mainly researchers in applied mathematics who work on Maxwell's equations. However, it can be used for master or doctorate-level courses on mathematical electromagnetism as it requires only a bachelor-level knowledge of analysis.

As the sequel to the proceedings of the International Conference of Continuum Mechanics Focusing on Singularities (CoMFoS15), the proceedings of CoMFoS16 present further advances and new topics in mathematical theory and numerical simulations related to various aspects of continuum mechanics. These include fracture mechanics, shape optimization, modeling of earthquakes, material structure, interface dynamics and complex systems.. The authors are leading researchers with a profound knowledge of mathematical analysis from the fields of applied mathematics, physics, seismology, engineering, and industry. The book helps readers to understand how mathematical theory can be applied to various industrial problems, and conversely, how industrial problems lead to new mathematical challenges.

This thesis combines advanced femtosecond laser micro/nanofabrication technologies and frontier bionic design principles to prepare diverse biomimetic micro/nanostructures to realize their functions. By studying the formation mechanism of the micro/nanostructures, the author identifies various artificial structural colors, three-dimensional micro/nanocage arrays, and fish-scale inspired microcone arrays in different processing environments. Multiple functions such as enhanced antireflection, hydrophobicity, and underwater superoleophobicity are achieved by precisely adjusting laser-machining parameters. This novel design and method have extensive potential applications in the context of new colorizing technologies, microfluidics, microsensors, and biomedicine.

This thesis explores several fundamental topics in mesoscopic circuitries that incorporate few electronic conduction channels. It reports a series of long-awaited experiments that establish a new state of the art. The first experiments address the quantized character of charge in circuits. We demonstrate the charge quantization criterion, observe the predicted charge quantization scaling and a crossover toward a universal behavior as temperature is increased. The second set of experiments addresses the unconventional quantum critical physics that arises in the multichannel Kondo model. We observe the predicted universal Kondo fixed points and validate the numerical renormalization group scaling curves. Away from the quantum critical point, we obtain a direct visualization of the development of a second-order quantum phase transition.

This new edition provides a state-of-the-art survey of ellipsometric methods used to study organic films and surfaces, from laboratory to synchrotron applications, with a special focus on in-situ use in processing environments and at solid-liquid interfaces. Thanks to the development of functional organic, meta- and hybrid materials for new optical, electronic, sensing and biotechnological devices, the ellipsometric analysis of optical and material properties has made tremendous strides over the past few years. The second edition has been updated to reflect the latest advances in ellipsometric methods. The new content focuses on the study of anisotropic materials, conjugated polymers, polarons, self-assembled monolayers, industrial membranes, adsorption of proteins, enzymes and RGD-peptides, as well as the correlation of ellipsometric spectra to structure and molecular interactions.

This didactic book uses a data-driven approach to connect measurements made by plasma instruments to the real world. This approach makes full use of the instruments' capability and examines the data at the most detailed level an experiment can provide. Students using this approach will learn what instruments can measure, and working with real-world data will pave their way to models consistent with these observations. While conceived as a teaching tool, the book contains a considerable amount of new information. It emphasizes recent results, such as particle measurements made from the Cluster ion experiment, explores the consequences of new discoveries, and evaluates new trends or techniques in the field. At the same time, the author ensures that the physical concepts used to interpret the data are general and widely applicable. The topics included help readers understand basic problems fundamental to space plasma physics. Some are appearing for the first time in a space physics textbook. Others present different perspectives and interpretations of old problems and models that were previously considered incontestable. This book is essential reading for graduate students in space plasma physics, and a useful reference for the broader astrophysics community.

This book develops a methodology for the real-time coupled quantum dynamics of electrons and phonons in nanostructures, both isolated structures and those open to an environment. It then applies this technique to both fundamental and practical problems that are relevant, in particular, to nanodevice physics, laser-matter interaction, and radiation damage in living tissue. The interaction between electrons and atomic vibrations (phonons) is an example of how a process at the heart of quantum dynamics can impact our everyday lives. This is e.g. how electrical current generates heat, making your toaster work. It is also a key process behind many crucial problems down to the atomic and molecular scale, such as the functionality of nanoscale electronic devices, the relaxation of photo-excited systems, the energetics of systems under irradiation, and thermoelectric effects. Electron-phonon interactions represent a difficult many-body problem. Fairly standard techniques are available for tackling cases in which one of the two subsystems can be treated as a steady-state bath for the other, but determining the simultaneous coupled dynamics of the two poses a real challenge. This book tackles precisely this problem.

This book presents experimental and theoretical results on extremely powerful plasma generators. It addresses pulsed electrical mega-ampere arcs and the mechanisms of energy transfer from the arc into hydrogen, helium and air under pressures up to 250 MPa and currents up to 2 MA. Extreme plasma parameters and increased energy density in the arc were achieved. It was found experimentally that increasing the initial gas pressure to hundreds of MPa leads to improved arc stability, high efficiency of energy transfer from arc to gas, and plasma enthalpy growth. The data obtained data provides the basis for the development of electrophysical devices with high energy density, e.g. high intensity sources for visible, UV and X-ray irradiation for laser pumping, generators of high enthalpy plasma jets, and plasma chemical reactors.