In an attempt to meet the demand for new ultra-high strength materials, the processing of novel material configurations with unique microstructure is being explored in systems which are further and further from equilibrium. One such class of emerging materials is the so-called nanophased or nanostructured materials. This class of materials includes metals and alloys, ceramics, and polymers characterized by controlled ultra-fine microstructural features in the form oflayered, fibrous, or phase and grain distribution. While it is clear that these materials are in an early stage of development, there is now a sufficient body of literature to fuel discussion of how the mechanical properties and deformation behavior can be controlled through control of the microstructure. This NATO-Advanced Study Institute was convened in order to assess our current state of knowledge in the field of mechanical properties and deformation behavior in materials with ultra fine microstructure, to identify opportunities and needs for further research, and to identify the potential for technological applications. The Institute was the first international scientific meeting devoted to a discussion on the mechanical properties and deformation behavior of materials having grain sizes down to a few nanometers. Included in these discussions were the topics of superplasticity, tribology, and the supermodulus effect. Lectures were also presented which covered a variety of other themes including synthesis, characterization, thermodynamic stability, and general physical properties."

The Sixth International Conference on Sintering and Related Phenomena took place at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana June 6-8, 1983. This conference was also the twentieth Conference on Ceramic Sciences organized yearly by a "confederation" of four institutions: North Carolina University at Raleigh, N.C., the University of California at Berkeley, CA, Alfred University at Alfred, NY and the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN. The papers presented at the last Notre Dame conference collect ed in this volume, reflect the progress in our understanding of the process of sintering achieved in the past four years. It seems that the analysis of the two particle models is finally extended to the analysis of the models of compacts. In these investigations strong emphasis is put on pore-grain boundar ies interaction which appear to be central to this problem. It is to be hoped that in the near future an adequate model of the compact will be developed which may serve as a useful basis of powder tech nology. Also, the effects of atmosphere on the sintering of ceramics after a long period of neglect, seem to attract the attention of more workers in the field."

Despite the significant progress, which has been made in developing of ceramic materials desired for engineering applications, their mass production is still not on expected level. Among the key factors hindering higher exploitation of these materials the problems in processing were identified. The processing comprises powder production, mixing techniques, forming, and sintering. All of them are equally important and all of them can introduce defects into the material. Besides improvement in processing, the properties of ceramic materials can be considerably improved by the creation of composites. Composites formed at micro or macro level are able to form more flaw-tolerant material. Considerable research activities, working on above mentioned phenomena are in progress at industrial laboratories as well as other research centres. This volume presents the contributions to the Advanced Research Workshop "Engineering Ceramics '96" with 65 participants from 21 countries held on 12th - 15th May 1996 at Smolenice Castle, Slovakia, the conference site of Slovak Academy of Sciences. The book covers research activities on engineering ceramic materials and gives an overview with respect to recent developments.

The phenomenonofspontaneous ordering in semiconductoralloys, which can be categorized as a self-organized process, is observed to occur sponta neously during epitaxial growth of certain ternary alloy semiconductors and results in a modification of their structural, electronic, and optical properties. There has been a great dealofinterest in learning how to control this phenome non so that it may be used for tailoring desirable electronic and optical properties. There has been even greater interest in exploiting the phenomenon for its unique ability in providing an experimental environment of controlled alloy statistical fluctuations. As such, itimpacts areasofsemiconductorscience and technology related to the materials science ofepitaxial growth, statistical mechanics, and electronic structure of alloys and electronic and photonic devices. During the past two decades, significant progress has been made toward understanding the mechanisms that drive this phenomenon and the changes in physical properties that result from it. A variety of experimental techniques have been used to probe the phenomenon and several attempts made atproviding theoretical models both for the ordering mechanisms as well as electronic structure changes. The various chapters of this book provide a detailed account of these efforts during the past decade. The first chapter provides an elaborate account of the phenomenon, with an excellent perspective of the structural and elec tronic modifications itinduces.

Composite materials are increasingly used in many applications because they offer the engineer a range of advantages over traditional materials. They are often used in situations where a specified level of performance is required, but where the cost of testing the materials under the extremes of those specifications is very high. In order to solve this problem, engineers are turning to computer Modelling to evaluate the materials under the range of conditions they are likely to encounter. Many of these analyses are carried out in isolation, and yet the evaluation of a range of composites can be carried out using the same basic principles. In this new book the editor has brought together an international panel of authors, each of whom is working on the analysis and Modelling of composite materials. The overage of the book is deliberately wide; to illustrate that similar principles and methods can be used to model and evaluate a wide range of materials. It is also hoped that, by bringing together this range of topics, the insight gained in the study of one composite can be recognized and utilized in the study of others. Professional engineers involved in the specification and testing of composite material structures will find this book an invaluable resource in the course of their work. It will also be of interest to those industrial and academic engineers involved in the design, development, manufacture and applications of composite materials.

The Microsystems Series has as its goal the creation of an outstanding set of textbooks, references, and monographs on subjects that span the broad field of microsystems. Exceptional PhD dissertations provide a good starting point for such a series, because, unlike monographs by more senior authors, which must compete with other professional duties for attention, the dissertation becomes the sole focus of the author until it is completed. Conversion to book form is then a streamlined process, with final editing and book production completed within a few months. Thus we are able to bring important and timely material into book form at a pace which tracks this rapidly developing field. Our first four books in the series were drawn from the more physics-oriented side of the microsystems field, including such diverse subjects as computer-aided design, atomic-force microscopy, and ultrasonic motion detection. Now, with Sangeeta Bhatia's work, we enter the realm of biology. Her use of artifically structured substrates to encourage the liver cells to form orderly assemblies is a fine example of how microfabrication technology can contribute to cell biology and medicine. I am pleased to be able to add this very new and very interesting work to the Microsystems Series. Stephen D. Senturia Cambridge MA Microfabrication in Tissue Engineering and Bioartificial Organs Foreword One of the emerging applications of microsystems technology in biology and medicine is in the field of tissue engineering and artificial organs. In order to function, cells need to receive proper signals from their environment.

The Eighth Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics was held on the campus of the University of Rochester during the period June 13-16,2001. This volume contains the proceedings of the meeting. The meeting was preceded by an affiliated conference, the International Conference on Quantum Information, with some overlapping sessions on June 13. The proceedings of the affiliated conference will be published separately by the Optical Society of America. A few papers that were presented in common plenary sessions of the two conferences will be published in both proceedings volumes. More than 268 scientists from 28 countries participated in the week long discussions and presentations. This Conference differed from the previous seven in the CQO series in several ways, the most important of which was the absence of Leonard Mandel. Professor Mandel died a few months before the conference. A special memorial symposium in his honor was held at the end of the conference. The presentations from that symposium are included in this proceedings volume. An innovation, that we believe made an important contribution to the conference, was the inclusion of a series of invited lectures chaired by CQO founder Emil Wolf, reviewing the history of the fields of coherence and quantum optics before about 1970. These were given by three prominent participants in the development of the field, C. Cohen-Tannoudji, 1. F. Clauser, and R. I. Glauber.

The study of defects and disorder in solids remains a central topic in solid state science. Developments in the field continue to be promoted by new experimental and theoretical techniques, while further impetus for the study of disorder in solids is provided by the growing range of applications of solid state materials in which disorder at the atomic level plays a crucial rOle. In this book we attempt to present a survey of fundamental and applied aspects of the field. We consider the basic aspects of defective crystalline and amorphous solids. We discuss recent studies of structural, electronic, transport, thermodynamic and spectroscopic properties of such materials. Experimental and theoretical methodologies are reviewed, and detailed consideration is given to materials such as fast ion conductors and amorphous semiconductors that are of importance in an applied context. Any survey of this large field is necessarily selective. We have chosen to emphasise insulating (especially oxidic) and semi-conducting materials. But many of the approaches and techniques we describe apply generally across the entire field of solid state science. This volume is based on a NATO ASI held at the Residencia Santa Teresa de Jesus, Madrid in September 1991. The Editor is grateful to the NATO Scientific Affairs Division for their sponsorship of this School. Thanks are also due to all who participated in and lectured at the school, but especially to the organising committee of A. V. Chadwick, G. N. Greaves, M. Grigorkiewicz, J. H. Harding and S. Kalbitzer. C. R. A.

MICROELECTRONIC INTERCONNECTIONS AND MICROASSEMBL Y WORKSHOP 18-21 May 1996, Prague, Czech Republic Conference Organizers: George Harman, NIST (USA) and Pavel Mach (Czech Republic) Summary of the Technical Program Thirty two presentations were given in eight technical sessions at the Workshop. A list of these sessions and their chairpersons is attached below. The Workshop was devoted to the technical aspects of advanced interconnections and microassembly, but also included papers on the education issues required to prepare students to work in these areas. In addition to new technical developments, several papers presented overviews predicting the future directions of these technologies. The basic issue is that electronic systems will continue to be miniaturized and at the same time performance must continue to improve. Various industry roadmaps were discussed as well as new smaller packaging and interconnection concepts. The newest chip packages are often based on the selection of an appropriate interconnection method. An example is the chip-scale package, which has horizontal (x-y) dimensions,;; 20% larger than the actual silicon chip itself. The chip is often flip-chip connected to a micro ball-grid-array, but direct chip attach was described also. Several papers described advances in the manufacture of such packages.

The fourth edition of "Solid Surfaces, Interfaces and Thin Films" has been used meanwhile as a standard textbook around the world at many universities and research institutions. Even though surface and interface physics have become a mature science branch, their theoretical concepts and experimental techniques are of higher importance than ever before because of their impact on nanostructure physics. Surface and interface physics form the basis for modern nanoscience, be it in quantum electronics, in catalysis, in corrosion, or in lubrication research. This explains the ever-growing demand for education in these elds. It was therefore time to carefully revise the book and bring it up to latest dev- opments both in fundamental research and in application. Concerning new ma- rial aspects topics about group III nitride surfaces and high k-oxide/semiconductor heterostructures have been included. Recent developments in these material classes are of essential importance for high-speed/high-power electronics and advanced - based CMOS technology on the nanometer scale. The novel eld of spin electronics or spintronics having been initiated by the detection of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) by Peter Grunberg and Albert Fert (Nobel Prize 2007) required a more extensive consideration of anisotropy effects in thin magnetic lms. For the devel- ment of purely electrical spin switching devices based on spin effects rather than on semiconductor space charge layers, a prerequisite for high-speed, low-power sp- tronics, the spin-transfer torque mechanism shows some promise. Correspondingly this topic is discussed in direct connection with the GMR in this new edition.

The study of phase transformations in substitutional alloys, including order disorder phenomena and structural transformations, plays a crucial role in understanding the physical and mechanical properties of materials, and in designing alloys with desired technologically important characteristics. Indeed, most of the physical properties, including equilibrium properties, transport, magnetic, vibrational as well as mechanical properties of alloys are often controlled by and are highly sensitive to the existence of ordered compounds and to the occurrence of structural transformations. Correspondingly, the alloy designer facing the task of processing new high-performance materials with properties that meet specific industrial applications must answer the following question: What is the crystalline structure and the atomic configuration that an alloy may exhibit at given temperature and concentration? Usually the answer is sought in the phase-diagram of a relevant system that is often determined experimentally and does not provide insight to the underlying mechanisms driving phase stability. Because of the rather tedious and highly risky nature of developing new materials through conventional metallurgical techniques, a great deal of effort has been expended in devising methods for understanding the mechanisms contrOlling phase transformations at the microscopic level. These efforts have been bolstered through the development of fully ab initio, accurate theoretical models, coupled with the advent of new experimental methods and of powerful supercomputer capabilities.

This book represents the proceedings of the First International Conference on Frontiers of Polymer Research held in New Delhi, India during January 20-25, 1991. Polymers have usually been perceived as substances to be used in insulations, coatings, fabrics, and structural materials. Defying this classical view, polymers are emerging as a new class of materials with potential applications in many new technologies. They also offer challenging opportunities for fundamental research. Recognizing a tremendous growth in world wide interest in polymer research and technology, a truly global "1st International Conference on Frontiers of Polymer Research" was organized by P. N. Prasad (SUNY at Buffalo), F. E. Karasz (University of Massachusetts) and J. K. Nigam (Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, India). The 225 participants represented 25 countries and a wide variety of academic, industrial and government groups. The conference was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Chandra Shekhar and had a high level media coverage. The focus of the conference was on three frontier areas of polymer research: (i) Polymers for photonics, where nonlinear optical properties of polymers show great promise, (ii) Polymers for electronics, where new conduction mechanisms and photophysics have generated considerable enthusiasm and (iii) High performance polymers as new advanced polymers have exhibited exceptionally high mechanical strength coupled with light weight.

The Workshop on Physics and Application of Non-crystalline Semiconductors in Optoelectronics was held from 15 to 17 October 1996 in Chisinau. republic of Moldova and was devoted to the problems of non-crystalline semiconducting materials. The reports covered two mjlin topics: theoretical basis of physics of non -crystalline materials and experimental results. In the framework of these major topics there were treated many subjects. concerning the physics of non-crystalline semiconductors and their specific application: -optical properties of non-crystalline semiconductors; -doping of glassy semiconductors and photoinduced effects in chalcogenide glasses and their application for practical purposes; -methods for investigation of the structure in non-crystalline semiconductors -new glassy materials for IR trasmittance and optoelectronics. Reports and communications were presented on various aspects of the theory. new physical principles. studies of the atomic structure. search and development of optoelectronics devices. Special attention was paid to the actual subject of photoinduced transformations and its applications. Experimental investigations covered a rather wide spectrum of materials and physical phenomena. As a novel item it is worth to mention the study of nonlinear optical effects in amorphous semiconducting films. The third order optical non linearities. fast photoinduced optical absorption and refraction. acusto-optic effects recently discovered in non-crystalline semiconductors could potentially be utilised for optical signal processing. The important problems of photoinduced structural transformations and related phenomena. which are very attractive and actual both from the scientific and practical points of view. received much attention in discussions at the conference."

It is not good to have zeal without knowledge * . . . Book of Proverbs This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Materials Processing at High Gravity. It offers the latest results in a new field with immense potential for commercialization, making this book a vital resource for research and development professionals in industry, academia and government. We have titled the proceedings Centrifugal Materials Processing to emphasize that centrifugation causes more than an increase in acceleration. It also introduces the Coriolis force and a gradient of acceleration, both of which have been discovered to play important roles in materials processing. The workshop was held June 2-8, 1996 on the campus of Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, under the sponsorship of Corning Corporation and the International Center for Gravity Materials Science and Applications. The meeting was very productive and exciting, with energetic discussions of the latest discoveries in centrifugal materials processing, continuing the atmosphere of the first workshop held in 1991 at Dubna (Russia) and the second workshop held in 1993 in Potsdam, New York. Results and research plans were presented for a wide variety of centrifugal materials processing, including directional solidification of semiconductors, crystallization of high Tc superconductors, growth of diamond thin films, welding, alloy casting, solution behavior and growth, protein crystal growth, polymerization, and flow behavior. Also described were several centrifuge facilities that have been constructed for research, with costs beginning at below $1000.

Intensive research on zeolites, during the past thirty years, has resulted in a deep understanding of their chemistry and in a true zeolite science, including synthesis, structure, chemical and physical properties, and catalysis. These studies are the basis for the development and growth of several industrial processes applying zeolites for selective sorption, separation, and catalysis. In 1983, a NATO Advanced Study Institute was organized in Alcabideche (portugal) to establish the State-of-the-Art in Zeolite Science and Technology and to contribute to a better understanding of the structural properties of zeolites, the configurational constraints they may exert, and their effects in adsorption, diffusion, and catalysis. Since then, zeolite science has witnessed an almost exponential growth in published papers and patents, dealing with both fundamentals issues and original applications. The proposal of new procedures for zeolite synthesis, the development of novel and sophisticated physical techniques for zeolite characterization, the discovery of new zeolitic and related microporous materials, progresses in quantum chemistry and molecular modeling of zeolites, and the application of zeolites as catalysts for organic reactions have prompted increasing interest among the scientific community. An important and harmonious interaction between various domains of Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering resulted therefrom.

Microwave Physics and Techniques discusses the modelling and application of nonlinear microwave circuits and the problems of microwave electrodynamics and applications of magnetic and high Tc superconductor structures. Aspects of advanced methods for the structural investigation of materials and of MW remote sensing are also considered. The dual focus on both HTSC MW device physics and MW excitation in ferrites and magnetic films will foster the interaction of specialists in these different fields.

Progress in the development of surgical implant materials has been hindered by the lack of basic information on the nature of the tissues, organs and systems being repaired or replaced. Materials' properties of living systems, whose study has been conducted largely under the rubric of tissue mechanics, has tended to be more descriptive than quantitative. In the early days of the modern surgical implant era, this deficiency was not critical. However, as implants continue to improve and both longer service life and higher reliability are sought, the inability to predict the behavior of implanted manufactured materials has revealed the relative lack of knowledge of the materials properties of the supporting or host system, either in health or disease. Such a situation is unacceptable in more conventional engineering practice: the success of new designs for aeronautical and marine applications depends exquisitely upon a detailed, disciplined and quantitative knowledge of service environments, including the properties of materials which will be encountered and interacted with. Thus the knowledge of the myriad physical properties of ocean ice makes possible the design and development of icebreakers without the need for trial and error. In contrast, the development period for a new surgical implant, incorporating new materials, may well exceed a decade and even then only short term performance predictions can be made.

Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from the first? The earth to be spann'd, connected by net-work From Passage to India! Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass", 1900. The Internet is growing at a tremendous rate today. New services, such as telephony and multimedia, are being added to the pure data-delivery framework of yesterday. Such high demands on capacity could lead to a "bandwidth-crunch" at the core wide-area network resulting in degra dation of service quality. Fortunately, technological innovations have emerged which can provide relief to the end-user to overcome the In ternet's well-known delay and bandwidth limitations. At the physical layer, a major overhaul of existing networks has been envisaged from electronic media (such as twisted-pair and cable) to optical fibers - in the wide area, in the metropolitan area, and even in the local area set tings. In order to exploit the immense bandwidth potential of the optical fiber, interesting multiplexing techniques have been developed over the years. Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is such a promising tech nique in which multiple channels are operated along a single fiber si multaneously, each on a different wavelength. These channels can be independently modulated to accommodate dissimilar bit rates and data formats, if so desired. Thus, WDM carves up the huge bandwidth of an optical fiber into channels whose bandwidths (1-10 Gbps) are compati ble with peak electronic processing speed.

This 6th International Symposium on Thermal Expansion, the first outside the USA, was held on August 29-31, 1977 at the Gull Harbour Resort on Hecla Island, Manitoba, Canada. Symposium Chairman was Ian D. Peggs, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, and our continuing sponsor was CINDAS/Purdue University. We made considerable efforts to broaden the base this year to include more users of expansion data but with little success. We were successful, however, in establishing a session on liquids, an area which is receiving more attention as a logical extension to the high-speed thermophysical property measurements on materials at temperatures close to their melting points. The Symposium had good international representation but the overall attendance was, disappointingly, relatively low. Neverthe less, this enhanced the informal atmosphere throughout the meeting with a resultant frank exchange of information and ideas which all attendees appreciated. A totally new item this year was the presentation of a bursary to assist an outstanding research student to attend the Symposium. We were delighted to welcome Mr. Benedick Fraass from the Univer sity of Illinois to the Symposium, and he responded by making an informal presentation on the topic of his research. We hope this feature will continue. Previous Symposia in the series were: DATE SPONSOR LOCATION CHAIRMEN September 18-20 Gaithersburg, R.K. Kirby Natl. Bureau of 1968 Maryland Standards P.S. Gaal Westinghouse Astronuclear Lab. June 10-12 Santa Fe, R.O. Simmons Materials Res. Lab."

These volumes, 9 and 10, of Fracture Mechanics of Ceramics constitute the proceedings of an international symposium on the fracture mechanics of ceramic materials held at the Japan Fine Ceramics Center, Nagoya, Japan on July 15, 16, 17, 1991. These proceedings constitute the fifth pair of volumes of a continuing series of conferences. Volumes 1 and 2 were from the 1973 symposium, volumes 3 and 4 from a 1977 symposium, and volumes 5 and 6 from a 1981 symposium all of which were held at The Pennsylvania State University. Volumes 7 and 8 are from the 1985 symposium which was held at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The theme ofthis conference, as for the previous four, focused on the mechanical behavior ofceramic materials in terms of the characteristics of cracks, particularly the roles which they assume in the fracture processes and mechanisms. The 82 contributed papers by over 150 authors and co-authors represent the current state of that field. They address many of the theoretical and practical problems ofinterest to those scientists and engineers concerned with brittle fracture.

In recent years remarkable progress has been made in the development of materials for ultrasonic transducers. There is a continuing trend towards increasingly higher frequency ranges for the application of ultrasonic trans ducers in modern technology. The progress in this area has been especially rapid and articles and papers on the subject are scattered over numerous technical and scientific journals in this country and abroad. Although good books have appeared on ultrasonics in general and ultrasonic transducers in particular in which, for obvious reasons, materials play an important part, no comprehensive treatise is available that represents the state-of-the-art on modern ultrasonic transducer materials. This book intends to fill a need for a thorough review of the subject. Not all materials are covered of which, theoretically, ultrasonic trans ducers could be made but those that are or may be of technical impor tance and which have inherent electro acoustic transducer properties, i.e., materials that are either magnetostrictive, electrostrictive, or piezoelectric. The book has been devided into three parts which somewhat reflect the historic development of ultrasonic transducer materials for important tech nical application. Chapter 1 deals with magnetostrictive materials, magnetostrictive met als and their alloys, and magnetostrictive ferrites (polycrystalline ceramics). The metals are useful especially in cases where ruggednes of the transducers are of overriding importance and in the lower ultrasonic frequency range."

Polymer composites represent materials of great and of continuously growing importance. Their potential for application appears to be limitless. They have been the subject of numerous studies both at academic and industrial levels. Much progress has been made in the incisive formulation of composites; sophisticated methods of property evaluation have been developed in the past decade and many, largely empirical solutions have been proposed to resolve the problem of their long-term performance under typical conditions of use (i. e. the use of silane or titane coupling agents to enhance adhesion within composite materials). Assuredly one of the most essential factors in the performance of these systems is the condition of the interface and interphase among the constituents of a given system. It has become clear that it is the interface/interphase, and the interactions which take place in this part of a system, which determine to a significant degree the initial properties of the material. In order to achieve leadership in the formulation and application of polymer composites, it is evident that in depth understanding of interfacial and interphase phenomena becomes a prerequisite.

Theoretical and experimental work on solids with low-dimensi onal cooperative phenomena has been rather explosively expanded in the last few years, and it seems to be quite fashionable to con tribute to this field, especially to the problem of one-dimensional metals. On the whole, one could divide the huge amount of recent investigations into two parts although there is much overlap bet ween these regimes, namely investigations on magnetic exchange interactions constrained to mainly one or two dimensions and, secondly, work done on Id metallic solids or linear chain compounds with Id delocalized electrons. There is, of course, overlap from one extreme case to the other with these solids and in some rare cases both phenomena are studied on one and the same crystal. In fact, however, most of the scientific groups in this area could be associated roughly with one of these categories and, in addition, a separation between theoreticians and experimentalists in each of these groups leads to a further splitting of interests although many theories about these solids have been tested by experimenta lists. Nevertheless, more cooperation and understanding between scientists working on low-dimensional cooperative phenomena should appreciably stimulate further development. With a better inderdis ciplinary understanding, new ideas could possibly help chemists in synthesizing tailor-cut solids. This would in return give experi mentalists new phenomena to examine and finally would stimulate new theoretical work."

This monograph, which is the outcome of the ASI on High Pressure Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Materials Science, illustrates new developments in the field of high pressure science. In fact, for chemists, biochemists, and materials scientists, pressure as an experimental variable represents a tool which provides unique information about systems of materials studied. It is interesting to note how the growth of the high pressure field is also reflected in the content of the recent ASI's dealing with this field. The ASI High Pressure Chemistry held in 1977 was followed by the ASI High Pressure Chemistry and Biochemistry held in 1986, and the coverage of the present ASI also includes applications to materials science. In view of the teaching character of the ASI, it is natural that main contributions to this volume present overviews of the different subfields or applications of high pressure research. In contrast, contributed papers offer more specialized aspects of various high pressure studies. The various contributions to this volume make clear the impressive range of fundamental and applied problems that can be studied by high pressure techniques, and also point towards a major growth of high pressure science and technology in the near future. This ASI focused mainly on advances achieved in the six years since the previous ASI devoted to the high pressure field. The organization of this volume is as follows.

Building on the extensive coverage of the first volume, Volume 2 focuses on the fundamentals of measurements and computational techniques that will aid researchers in the construction and use of measurement devices.