This book is concerned with polymeric hydrogels, which are considered as one of the most promising types of new polymer-based materials. Each chapter in this book describes a selected class of polymeric hydrogels, such as superabsorbent hybrid nanohydrogels, conducting polymer hydrogels, polysaccharide-based or protein-based hydrogels, or gels based on synthetic polymers. In this way, the book also addresses some of the fascinating properties and applications of polymeric hydrogels: they are three-dimensional, hydrophilic, polymeric networks that can absorb, swell and retain large quantities of water or aqueous fluids. In combination with metal nanoparticles, nanofibrils or nanowhiskers, which may be embedded in the gels, they find widespread applications, ranging from agriculture, and waste water treatment, over electronics, to pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Applications mentioned in this book include electro sensors, capacitors, electromechanical actuators, and even artificial muscles.

This introduction to materials science for engineers examines not only the physical and engineering properies of materials, but also their history, uses, development, and some of the implications of resource depletion, materials substitutions, and so forth. Topics covered include: the stone, copper, bronze, and iron ages; physical properties of metals, ceramics, and plastics; electrical and magnetic properties of metals, semiconductors, and insulators; band structure of metals; metallurgy of iron. This new edition includes new developments in the last five years, updated graphs and other dated information and references.

Theory of Nonlinear Propagation of High Harmonics Generated in a Gaseous Medium establishes the theoretical tools to study High-Order Harmonic Generation (HHG) by intense ultrafast infrared lasers in atoms and molecules. The macroscopic propagation of both laser and high-harmonic fields is taken into account by solving Maxwell's wave equations, while the single-atom or single-molecule response is treated with a quantitative rescattering theory by solving the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. This book demonstrates for the first time that observed experimental HHG spectra of atoms and molecules can be accurately reproduced theoretically when precise experimental conditions are known. The macroscopic HHG can be expressed as a product of a macroscopic wave packet and a photorecombination cross section, where the former depends on laser and experimental conditions while the latter is the property of target atoms or molecules. The factorization makes it possible to retrieve microscopically atomic or molecular structure information from the measured macroscopic HHG spectra. This book also investigates other important issues about HHG, such as contributions from multiple molecular orbitals, the minimum in the HHG spectrum, the spatial mode of laser beams, and the generation of an isolated attosecond pulse. Additionally, this book presents the photoelectron angular distribution of aligned molecules ionized by the HHG light.

This book offers concise information on the properties of polymeric materials, particularly those most relevant to physical chemistry and chemical physics. Extensive updates and revisions to each chapter include eleven new chapters on novel polymeric structures, reinforcing phases in polymers, and experiments on single polymer chains. The study of complex materials is highly interdisciplinary, and new findings are scattered among a large selection of scientific and engineering journals. This book brings together data from experts in the different disciplines contributing to the rapidly growing area of polymers and complex materials.

Background on Semimagnetic Semiconductors.- Thermodynamics and Crystal Growth of Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors.- Band Structure and Theory of Magnetic Interactions in Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors.- Transport phenomena in Semimagnetic Semiconductors.- Experimental Studies of the d-d Exchange Interactions in Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors.- Bound Magnetic Polarons in Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors.- Magnetooptic Properties of Wide Gap II1?xMnxVI Semimagnetic Semiconductors.- II-Fe-VI Semimagnetic Semiconductors.- Semimagnetic IV-VI Compound Semiconductors.- Semimagnetic Semiconductor Superlattices.- Magnetism of Fe-Based Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors.

Atomic transport in solids is a field of growing importance in solid state physics and chemistry, and one which, moreover, has important implications in several areas of materials science. This growth is due first to an increase in the understanding of the fund amentals of transport processes in solids. Of equal importance, however, have been the improvements in the last decade in the experi mental techniques available for the investigation of transport phenomena. The advances in technique have stimulated studies of a wider range of materials; and expansion of the field has been strong ly encouraged by the increasing range of applied areas where transport processes play an essential role. For example, mass transport phenomena play a critical role in the technology of fabrication of components in the electronics industry. Transport processes are involved both during the fabrication and operation of devices and with the growing trend to miniaturisation there are increasing demands on accurate control of diffusion processes. The present book (which is based on a NATO sponsored Advanced Study Institute held in 1981 at Lannion, France) aims to present a general survey of the subject, highlighting those areas where work has been especially active in recent years."

The textbook we offer to the reader is based on a two-term course of lec tures, "Electromagnetic Response of Material Media," that the authors gave for a number of years to the final-year students of the Physics Depart ment of Moscow University. This course built on courses in quantum electronics, nonlinear optics and theoretical fundamentals of quantum radiophysics; students are as sumed to have mastered the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, laser physics and nonlinear optics. The essential core of the course, and hence of the book, is the current general theory of electromagnetic response of a nonrelativistic medium. The main aspects are presented in Chapters 1 and 2. The second part is devoted to more traditional topics which students learn in this course of lectures and also in the course "Condensed Matter Physics" for students who choose to major in radiophysics and laser physics; this course is also taught by the authors at the Physics Department. This volume was intended as a text for students and, as such, does not cite original publications. We decided to provide a list of additional recommended literature, mostly of well known, easily accessible textbooks."

Pulse Generation and Detection: Terahertz Radiation from ElectroOptic Crystals (X.C. Zhang et al.). Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches for High Power Radiation (G.M. Loubriel). Broadband Electronic Systems and Components: Pulse Generation and Compression on a TravellingWave MMIC Schottky Diode Array (M. Dragoman et al.). Precursor of an UltraWideband Radar System (A.S. Podgorski). Antennas and Arrays: Impulse Radiating Antennas (C.E. Baum, E.G. Farr). WideBandwidth Radiation from Arrays of Endfire Tapered Slot Antennas (D.H. Schaubert). Pulse Propagation and Guidance: Ultrashort Pulse Response in Nonlinear Dispersive Media (R. Albanese et al.). Modulation and Noise in Soliton Pulse Trains (J.M. Arnold). Scattering Theory and Computation: Phase Error Control for FDTD Methods (P.G. Petropoulos). Signal Processing Techniques: Stable Pole Extraction from Scattering Data (S.U. Pillai, T.I. Shim). 49 additional articles. Index.

The second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty ?rst have been characterized by the most impressive industrial revolution ever seen. In - proximately 40years, the complexity of integrated circuits (ICs) has increased by a 9 factor of 10 , with a corresponding reduction of the cost per bit by eight orders of magnitude. Not only has this evolution allowed dramatic progress in allscienti?c ?elds (large computers, space probes, etc.), but also has fueled the economic development with the raise of new markets (personal computers, cellular phones, etc.) and even social revolutions (world wide web, global village, etc.). In last years, however, the situation has signi?cantly changed: the continuous scaling down of device size has eventually brought the IC major technique, p- tolithography, to its limits. Overcoming its original limits has been proved to be possible, but the price to pay for that has changed the playing rules - while at the beginning of the IC history the evolution was driven by technology, now it is driven by economy, the cost of a medium size production plant being in the range of a few billion dollars.

These proceedings comprise invited and contributed papers presented at the 14th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers (ICXRL 2014). This conference is part of a continuing series dedicated to recent developments and applications of x-ray lasers and other coherent x-ray sources with attention to supporting technologies and instrumentation. New results in the generation of intense, coherent x-rays and progress toward practical devices and their applications in numerous fields are reported. Areas of research in plasma-based x-ray lasers, 4th generation accelerator-based sources and higher harmonic generation, and other x-ray generation schemes are covered. The scope of ICXRL 2014 included, but was not limited to: Laser-pumped X-ray lasers Discharge excitation and other X-ray laser pumping methods Injection/seeding of X-ray amplifiers New lasing transitions and novel X-ray laser schemes High Harmonic sources-Free-electron laser generation in the XUV and X-ray range Novel schemes for coherent XUV and X-ray generation XUV and X-ray optics and metrology-Driving laser technology Theory and modeling of X-ray gain medium and beam characteristics Applications of high brightness and ultrashort X-ray sources

This volume collects the contributions! to the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) held in Aussois (France) by March 25 - April 5, 1991. This NATO ASI was intended to present and illustrate recent advances in computer simulation techniques applied to the study of materials science problems. Introductory lectures have been devoted to classical simulations with special reference to recent technical improvements, in view of their application to complex systems (glasses, molecular systems . . . ). Several other lectures and seminars focused on the methods of elaboration of interatomic potentials and to a critical presentation of quantum simulation techniques. On the other hand, seminars and poster sessions offered the opportunity to discuss the results of a great variety of simulation studies dealing with materials and complex systems. We hope that these proceedings will be of some help for those interested in simulations of material properties. The scientific committee advises have been of crucial importance in determining the conference program. The directors of the ASI express their gratitude to the colleagues who have participated to the committee: Y. Adda, A. Bellemans, G. BIeris, J. Castaing, C. R. A. Catlow, G. Ciccotti, J. Friedel, M. Gillan, J. P. Hansen, M. L. Klein, G. Martin, S. Nose, L. Rull-Fernandez, J. Valleau, J. Villain. The main financial support has been provided by the NATO Scientific Affairs Division and the Commission of European Communities (plan Science).

This book presents an analytical theory of the electronic states in ideal low dimensional systems and finite crystals based on a differential equation theory approach. It provides precise and fundamental understandings on the electronic states in ideal low-dimensional systems and finite crystals, and offers new insights into some of the basic problems in low-dimensional systems, such as the surface states and quantum confinement effects, etc., some of which are quite different from what is traditionally believed in the solid state physics community. Many previous predictions have been confirmed in subsequent investigations by other authors on various relevant problems. In this new edition, the theory is further extended to one-dimensional photonic crystals and phononic crystals, and a general theoretical formalism for investigating the existence and properties of surface states/modes in semi-infinite one-dimensional crystals is developed. In addition, there are various revisions and improvements, including using the Kronig-Penney model to illustrate the analytical theory and make it easier to understand. This book is a valuable resource for solid-state physicists and material scientists.

This book highlights plasma science and technology-related research and development work at institutes and universities networked through Asian African Association for Plasma Training (AAAPT) which was established in 1988. The AAAPT, with 52 member institutes in 24 countries, promotes the initiation and intensification of plasma research and development through cooperation and technology sharing. With 13 chapters on fusion-relevant, laboratory and industrial plasmas for wide range of applications and basic research and a chapter on AAAPT network, it demonstrates how, with collaborations, high-quality, industrially relevant academic and scientific research on fusion, industrial and laboratory plasmas and plasma diagnostics can be successfully pursued in small research labs. These plasma sciences and technologies include pioneering breakthroughs and applications in (i) fusion relevant research in the quest for long-term, clean energy source development using high-temperature, high- density plasmas and (ii) multibillion-dollar, low-temperature, non-equilibrium and thermal industrial plasmas used in processing, synthesis and electronics.

This book by Lev M. Blinov is ideal to guide researchers from their very first encounter with liquid crystals to the level where they can perform independent experiments on liquid crystals with a thorough understanding of their behaviour also in relation to the theoretical framework. Liquid crystals can be found everywhere around us. They are used in virtually every display device, whether it is for domestic appliances of for specialized technological instruments. Their finely tunable optical properties make them suitable also for thermo-sensing and laser technologies. There are many monographs written by prominent scholars on the subject of liquid crystals. The majority of them presents the subject in great depth, sometimes focusing on a particular research aspect, and in general they require a significant level of prior knowledge. In contrast, this books aims at an audience of advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics, chemistry and materials science. The book consists of three parts: the first part, on structure, starts from the fundamental principles underlying the structure of liquid crystals, their rich phase behaviour and the methods used to study them; the second part, on physical properties, emphasizes the influence of anisotropy on all aspects of liquid crystals behaviour; the third, focuses on electro-optics, the most important properties from the applications standpoint. This part covers only the main effects and illustrates the underlying principles in greater detail. Professor Lev M. Blinov has had a long carrier as an experimentalist. He made major contributions in the field of ferroelectric mesophases. In 1985 he received the USSR state prize for investigations of electro-optical effects in liquid crystals for spatial light modulators. In 1999 he was awarded the Frederiks medal of the Soviet Liquid Crystal Society and in 2000 he was honoured with the G. Gray silver medal of the British Liquid Crystal Society. He has held many visiting academic positions in universities and laboratories across Europe and in Japan.

This volume comprises the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study Institute held at Geilo, Norway, 24 March - 3 April 2003, the seventeenth ASI in a series held every two years since 1971. The objective of this ASI was to identify and discuss areas where synergism between modern physics, soft condensed matter and biology might be most fruitful. The main pedagogical approach was to have lecturers focussing on basic understanding of important aspects of the relative role of the various interaction- electrostatic, hydrophobic, steric, conformational, van der Waals etc. Soft condensed matter and the connection between physics and biology have been the themes of several earlier Geilo Schools. A return to these subjects thus allowed a fresh look and a possibility for defining new directions for research. Examples of soft materials, which were discussed at this ASI, included colloidal dispersions, gels, biopolymers and charged polymer solutions, polyelectrolytes, protein/membrane complexes, nucleic acids and their complexes. Indeed, most forms of condensed matter are soft and these substances are composed of aggregates and macromolecules, with interactions that are too weak and complex to form crystals spontaneously. A characteristic feature is that small external forces, slight perturbations in temperature, pressure or concentration, can all be enough to induce significant structural changes. Thermal fluctuations are almost by definition strong in soft materials and entropy is a predominant determinant of structure, so that disorder, slow dynamics and plastic deformation are the rule. Hence the phrase 'soft condensed matter' has been coined.

This book features the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute "Manipulating Quantum Coherence in Solid State Systems," held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, August 2005, which presented a fundamental introduction to solid-state approaches to achieving quantum computation. This proceedings volume describes the properties of quantum coherence in semiconductor spin-based systems and the behavior of quantum coherence in superconducting systems.

The study of liquids covers a wide range of scientific disciplines, primarily in physics and chemistry. As a result of this disparate activity the links between new developments in remote fields are seldom co-ordinated into a single conference. The objective of the present meeting was to gather together people with different forms of expertise. Previous ASI meetings on the liquid state have been held over an extended period and have occurred on a three-yearly basis. The first meeting in this series was on 'Structure and Dynamics of Liquids' in 1980 and was held on the island of Corsica. The next meeting on 'Molecular liquids: Dynamics and Interactions' was held in Florence in 1983 and was followed by 'Aqueous Solutions' at the Institut d'Etudes Scientifiques de Cargese in 1986. It therefore seemed a natural choice to select Cargese for the next meeting in 1989 and to choose a topic which emphasised a particular area of liquid state studies. Due to our own involvement in collaborative research we considered that 'Hydrogen-bonded liquids' would be an appropriate topic. One of its attractions, was that there was much new material coming from widely disparate investigations and it would be a convenient time to draw together the different strands. The particular interest in water was clearly central to this topic but it was thought desirable to set this development in the wider context of other systems in which hydrogen-bonding plays a significant role.

"Dynamics of Soft Matter: Neutron Applications" provides an overview of neutron scattering techniques that measure temporal and spatial correlations simultaneously, at the microscopic and/or mesoscopic scale. These techniques offer answers to new questions arising at the interface of physics, chemistry, and biology. Knowledge of the dynamics at these levels is crucial to understanding the soft matter field, which includes colloids, polymers, membranes, biological macromolecules, foams, emulsions towards biological & biomimetic systems, and phenomena involving wetting, friction, adhesion, or microfluidics.

Emphasizing the complementarities of scattering techniques with other spectroscopic ones, this volume also highlights the potential gain in combining techniques such as rheology, NMR, light scattering, dielectric spectroscopy, as well as synchrotron radiation experiments. Key areas covered include polymer science, biological materials, complex fluids and surface science.

This book constitutes the Proceedings of the 26th Symposium on Acoustical Imaging held inWindsor, Ontario, Canada during September 9-12, 2001. This traditional scientific event is recognized as a premier forum for the presentation of advanced research results in both theoretical and experimental development. The lAIS was conceived at a 1967Acoustical Holography meeting in the USA. Since then, these traditional symposia provide an opportunity for specialists who are working in this area to make new acquaintances, renew old friendships and present recent results of their research. Our Symposium has grown significantly in size due to a broad interest in various topics and to the quality of the presentations. For the firsttime in 40 years, the IAIS was held in the province of Ontario in Windsor, Canada's Automotive Capital and City of Roses. The 26th IAIS attracted over 100specialists from 13countries representing this interdisciplinary field in physical acoustics, image processing, applied mathematics, solid-state physics, biology and medicine, industrial applications and quality control technologies. The 26th lAIS was organized in the traditional way with only one addition-a Special Session "History of Acoustical Imaging" with the involvement of such well known scientists as Andrew Briggs, Noriyoshi Chubachi, Robert Green Jr., Joie Jones, Kenneth Erikson, and Bernhard Tittmann. Many of these speakers are well known scientists in their fields and we would like to thank them for making this session extremely successful.

This thesis conceptualizes and implements a new framework for designing materials that are far from equilibrium. Starting with state-of-the-art optimization engines, it describes an automated system that makes use of simulations and 3D printing to find the material that best performs a user-specified goal. Identifying which microscopic features produce a desired macroscopic behavior is a problem at the forefront of materials science. This task is materials design, and within it, new goals and challenges have emerged from tailoring the response of materials far from equilibrium. These materials hold promising properties such as robustness, high strength, and self-healing. Yet without a general theory to predict how these properties emerge, designing and controlling them presents a complex and important problem. As proof of concept, the thesis shows how to design the behavior of granular materials, i.e., collections of athermal, macroscopic identical objects, by identifying the particle shapes that form the stiffest, softest, densest, loosest, most dissipative and strain-stiffening aggregates. More generally, the thesis shows how these results serve as prototypes for problems at the heart of materials design, and advocates the perspective that machines are the key to turning complex material forms into new material functions.

The majority of the chapters in this volume represent a series of lectures. that were given at a workshop on quantum transport in ultrasmall electron devices, held at San Miniato, Italy, in March 1987. These have, of course, been extended and updated during the period that has elapsed since the workshop was held, and have been supplemented with additional chapters devoted to the tunneling process in semiconductor quantum-well structures. The aim of this work is to review and present the current understanding in nonequilibrium quantum transport appropriate to semiconductors. Gen erally, the field of interest can be categorized as that appropriate to inhomogeneous transport in strong applied fields. These fields are most likely to be strongly varying in both space and time. Most of the literature on quantum transport in semiconductors (or in metallic systems, for that matter) is restricted to the equilibrium approach, in which spectral densities are maintained as semiclassical energy conserving delta functions, or perhaps incorporating some form of collision broadening through a Lorentzian shape, and the distribution functions are kept in the equilibrium Fermi-Dirac form. The most familiar field of nonequilibrium transport, at least for the semiconductor world, is that of hot carriers in semiconductors."

Quantum mechanical laws are well documented at the level of a single or a few atoms and are here extended to systems containing 102 to 1010 electrons - still much smaller than the usual macroscopic objects, but behaving in a manner similar to a single atom. Besides the purely theoretical interest, such systems pose a challenge to the achievement of the ultimate microelectronic applications. The present volume presents an up-to-date account of the physics, technology and expected applications of quantum effects in solid-state mesoscopic structures. Physical phenomena include the Aharonov-Bohm effect, persistent currents, Coulomb blockade and Coulomb oscillations in single electron devices, Andreev reflections and the Josephson effect in superconductor/normal/superconductor systems, shot noise suppression in microcontacts and contact resistance quantisation, and overall quantum coherence in mesoscopic and nanoscopic structures related to the emerging physics of quantum computation in the solid-state environment.

This book is written to conclude the NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Quantum Noise in Mesoscopic Physics" held in Delft, the Netherlands, on June 2-4, 2002. The workshop was co-directed by M. Reznikov of Israel Institute of Technology, and me. The members of the organizing committee were Yaroslav Blanter (Delft), Chirstopher Glattli (Saclay and ENS Paris) and R. Schoelkopf (Yale). The workshop was very successful, and we hope that the reader will be satisfied with the scientific level of the present book. Before addressing scientific issues I find it suitable to address several non-scientific ones. The workshop was attended by researchers from many countries. Most of them perform their activities in academic institutions, where one usually finds the necessary isolation from the problems and sores of the modem world. However, there was a large group of participants for which such isolation was far from perfect. War, hatred, and violence rage just several miles away of their campuses and laboratories, poisoning everyday life in the land of Israel.

Semiconductor materials have been studied intensively since the birth of silicon technology more than 50 years ago. The ability to physically and chemically t- lor their properties with precision is the key factor responsible for the electronic revolution in our society over the past few decades. Semiconductor material s- tems (like silicon and GaAs-related materials) have now matured and found well established applications in electronics, optoelectronics, and several other ?elds. Other materials such as III-Nitrides were developed later, in response to needs that the above mentioned semiconductors were unable to ful?ll. The properties of I- nitrides (AlN, GaN InN, and related alloy systems) make them an excellent choice for ef?cient light emitters in the visible as well as the UV region, UV detectors, and for a variety of electronic device such as high frequency unipolar power devices. There was a major upsurgein the research of the GaN material system around1970.

During the past century, world-wide energy consumption has risen dramatically, which leads to a quest for new energy sources. Fusion of hydrogen atoms in hot plasmas is an attractive approach to solve the energy problem, with abundant fuel, inherent safety and no long-lived radioactivity. However, one of the limits on plasma performance is due to the various classes of magneto-hydrodynamic instabilities that may occur. The physics and control of these instabilities in modern magnetic confinement fusion devices is the subject of this book. Written by foremost experts, the contributions will provide valuable reference and up-to-date research reviews for "old hands" and newcomers alike.