Physics has been applied to medical diagnosis for very nearly 400 years, and has now become an essential element of medical practice. This book concentrates on the theoretical basis of the physics which supports diagnostic techniques in modern clinical practice. Arising out of over a decade of teaching a course on medical physics to third year undergraduate students, the book has been structured so that individuals with a non-physics background, such as medical students or practitioners, can also benefit.

Vacua are fundamental to a range of scientific explorations and technological processes; the range now extends from studies of the properties of atomically clean surfaces at pressures which verge on extreme ultrahigh vacuum, 10-12 mbar, to freeze drying of foodstuffs at pressures which may be only 10-1 mbar. In the pressure range between, vacua are required for TV tube production, vacuum impregnation, vacuum furnaces, vacuum coating, storage ring operation and semiconductor processing.

The book describes the physical basis of all of the principal and the majority of the more specialized techniques used today in studies of well-characterized solid surfaces. The techniques are grouped according to the underlying physics and are described in nine chapters. The treatment of each technique concentrates on the basic physical principles, and illustrates its use with selected examples with an emphasis on understanding the concepts. Included in each of these discussions is a view of the strengths, the weaknesses, and the complementary aspects of the individual methods. Although some mention is included of the potential use of some of the methods to study technical surfaces, the emphasis of the examples is taken from studies of the basic chemistry and physics of well-characterized surfaces under ultra-high vacuum conditions, aimed at elucidating their structural, compositional, electronic, and vibrational properties. This edition includes new material on synchrotron radiation related techniques, scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy.