By covering theory, design, and fabrication of nanostructured superconducting materials, this monograph is an invaluable resource for research and development. Examples are energy saving solutions, healthcare, and communication technologies. Key ingredients are nanopatterned materials which help to improve the superconducting critical parameters and performance of superconducting devices, and lead to novel functionalities. Contents Tutorial on nanostructured superconductors Imaging vortices in superconductors: from the atomic scale to macroscopic distances Probing vortex dynamics on a single vortex level by scanning ac-susceptibility microscopy STM studies of vortex cores in strongly confined nanoscale superconductors Type-1.5 superconductivity Direct visualization of vortex patterns in superconductors with competing vortex-vortex interactions Vortex dynamics in nanofabricated chemical solution deposition high-temperature superconducting films Artificial pinning sites and their applications Vortices at microwave frequencies Physics and operation of superconducting single-photon devices Josephson and charging effect in mesoscopic superconducting devices NanoSQUIDs: Basics & recent advances Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 intrinsic Josephson junction stacks as emitters of terahertz radiation| Interference phenomena in superconductor-ferromagnet hybrids Spin-orbit interactions, spin currents, and magnetization dynamics in superconductor/ferromagnet hybrids Superconductor/ferromagnet hybrids

A geometric figure has chirality, or handedness, if its mirror image cannot be brought to coincide with itself. The concept of chirality was instrumental in establishing the tetrahedral valences of the carbon atom, and has continued to play a key role in chemistry and molecular biology ever since.The fact that living organisms use only one of two mirror isomers of such molecules as amino acids and sugars, that is, the question of the origin of homochirality of the molecular basis of life, remains an unsolved problem of the same dignity as the origin of dark matter and dark energy.The increasing importance of chirality and topology in condensed matter physics and chemistry, and the production of new states of matter in heavy-ion collisions, have brought the concept of chirality into physics and cosmology in a tangible way while at the same time expanded the physics/chemistry interface. The book is the first to address all aspects of chirality in a single volume.