This handbook provides comprehensive treatment of the current state of glass science from the leading experts in the field. Opening with an enlightening contribution on the history of glass, the volume is then divided into eight parts. The first part covers fundamental properties, from the current understanding of the thermodynamics of the amorphous state, kinetics, and linear and nonlinear optical properties through colors, photosensitivity, and chemical durability. The second part provides dedicated chapters on each individual glass type, covering traditional systems like silicates and other oxide systems, as well as novel hybrid amorphous materials and spin glasses. The third part features detailed descriptions of modern characterization techniques for understanding this complex state of matter. The fourth part covers modeling, from first-principles calculations through molecular dynamics simulations, and statistical modeling. The fifth part presents a range of laboratory and industrial glass processing methods. The remaining parts cover a wide and representative range of applications areas from optics and photonics through environment, energy, architecture, and sensing. Written by the leading international experts in the field, the Springer Handbook of Glass represents an invaluable resource for graduate students through academic and industry researchers working in photonics, optoelectronics, materials science, energy, architecture, and more.

This volume provides the latest developments in the field of fractional dynamics, which covers fractional (anomalous) transport phenomena, fractional statistical mechanics, fractional quantum mechanics and fractional quantum field theory. The contributors are selected based on their active and important contributions to their respective topics. This volume is the first of its kind that covers such a comprehensive range of topics in fractional dynamics. It will point out to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and young researchers the possible directions of research in this subject. In addition to those who intend to work in this field and those already in the field, this volume will also be useful for researchers not directly involved in the field, but want to know the current status and trends of development in this subject. This latter group includes theoretical chemists, mathematical biologists and engineers.

The dielectric properties especially of glassy materials are nowadays explored at widely varying temperatures and pressures without any gap in the spectral range from μHz up to the Infrared, thus covering typically 20 decades or more. This extraordinary span enables to trace the scaling and the mutual interactions of relaxation processes in detail, e.g. the dynamic glass transition and secondary relaxations, but as well far infrared vibrations, like the Boson peak. Additionally the evolution of intra-molecular interactions in the course of the dynamic glass transition is also well explored by (Fourier Transform) Infrared Spectroscopy. This volume within 'Advances in Dielectrics' summarizes this knowledge and discusses it with respect to the existing and often competing theoretical concepts.

Atoms and molecules in all states of matter are subject to continuous irregular movement. This process, referred to as diffusion, is among the most general and basic phenomena in nature and determines the performance of many technological processes. This book provides an introduction to the fascinating world of diffusion in microporous solids. Jointly written by three well-known researchers in this field, it presents a coherent treatise, rather than a compilation of separate review articles, covering the theoretical fundamentals, molecular modeling, experimental observation and technical applications. Based on the book Diffusion in Zeolites and other Microporous Solids, originally published in 1992, it illustrates the remarkable speed with which this field has developed since that time. Specific topics include: new families of nanoporous materials, micro-imaging and single-particle tracking, direct monitoring of transient profiles by interference microscopy, single-file diffusion and new approaches to molecular modeling.

About sixty years ago, the anomalous magnetic response of certain magnetic alloys drew the attention of theoretical physicists. It soon became clear that understanding these systems, now called spin glasses, would give rise to a new branch of statistical physics. As physical materials, spin glasses were found to be as useless as they were exotic. They have nevertheless been recognized as paradigmatic examples of complex systems with applications to problems as diverse as neural networks, amorphous solids, biological molecules, social and economic interactions, information theory and constraint satisfaction problems.This book presents an encyclopaedic overview of the broad range of these applications. More than 30 contributions are compiled, written by many of the leading researchers who have contributed to these developments over the last few decades. Some timely and cutting-edge applications are also discussed. This collection serves well as an introduction and summary of disordered and glassy systems for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and practitioners interested in the topic.

This block explores the diffusion equation which is most commonly encountered in discussions of the flow of heat and of molecules moving in liquids, but diffusion equations arise from many different areas of applied mathematics. As well as considering the solutions of diffusion equations in detail, we also discuss the microscopic mechanism underlying the diffusion equation, namely that particles of matter or heat move erratically. This involves a discussion of elementary probability and statistics, which are used to develop a description of random walk processes and of the central limit theorem. These concepts are used to show that if particles follow random walk trajectories, their density obeys the diffusion equation.