This review volume contains articles on the recent developments, new ideas, as well as controversial issues dealing with the general phenomena of hopping transport in disordered systems. Examples of hopping systems of current interest are polymers and biological materials, mesoscopic systems, two- and one-dimensional systems such as MOSFETs, semiconductors near the metal-nonmetal transition, and the new high temperature superconducting materials (in their normal state). The fundamental problems addressed include effects of static and dynamic interactions with phonons, Coulomb interaction, new magnetic effects due to coherent scattering, effects of high electric fields, and relaxation phenomena.

The phenomenon of hopping, in which a particle executes a series of jumps between discrete states, has a fundamental role in a wide range of solid state transport phenomena. In these proceedings acknowledged experts in the field describe important recent progress in developing the phenomenology of hopping processes and applying it to different systems, including crystalline and amorphous semiconductors, glasses, polymers, mesoscopic conductors and high temperature superconductors.

The problem of superconductors has been a central issue in Solid State Physics since 1987. After the discovery of superconductivity (HTSC) in doped perovskites, it was realized that the HTSC appears in an unknown complex electronic phase of c- densed matter. In the early years, all theories of HTSC were focused on the physics of a homogeneous 2D metal with large electron–electron correlations or on a 2D polaron gas. Only after 1990, a novel paradigm started to grow where this 2D metallic phase is described as an inhomogeneous metal. This was the outcome of several experimental evidences of phase separation at low doping. Since 1992, a series of conferences on phase separation were organized to allow scientists to get together to discuss the phase separation and related issues. Following the discovery by the Rome group in 1992 that “the charges move freely mainly in one direction like the water running in the grooves in the corrugated iron foil,” a new scenario to understand superconductivity in the superconductors was open. Because the charges move like rivers, the physics of these materials shifts toward the physics of novel mesoscopic heterostructures and complex electronic solids. Therefore, understanding the striped phases in the perovskites not only provides an opportunity to understand the anomalous metallic state of cuprate superconductors, but also suggests a way to design new materials of technological importance. Indeed, the stripes are becoming a field of general scientific interest.

"Roughening dynamics of various interface problems has been an attractive topic recently. The subject is related to many interdisciplinary branches in nonequilibrium statistical physics such as crystal growth, vortex dynamics, fractals and chaos, and self-organized critical phenomena. This volume includes pedagogical reviews of the scaling concepts in fluctuating surfaces, current theories on expitaxial growth phenomena and interface dynamics in disordered media, and many other related topics. Thus it serves as a valuable reference for both graduate students and researchers in statistical physics and materials science."--Publisher's website.

Roughening dynamics of various interface problems has been an attractive topic recently. The subject is related to many interdisciplinary branches in nonequilibrium statistical physics such as crystal growth, vortex dynamics, fractals and chaos, and self-organized critical phenomena. This volume includes pedagogical reviews of the scaling concepts in fluctuating surfaces, current theories on expitaxial growth phenomena and interface dynamics in disordered media, and many other related topics. Thus it serves as a valuable reference for both graduate students and researchers in statistical physics and materials science.

This book addresses new challenges in soft matter and colloids. It presents timely reports on colloidal self-assembly, soft matters from liquid crystals, nanoparticles in liquid crystals, hydrocolloids, hybrid nanosystems, nanosuspensions, and dispersion of nanoparticles in different media, soft matter processing and modern experiments related with soft matters.