The contents of this volume represent most of the papers presented either orally or as posters at the international conference held in Les rd th Arcs, Savoie, from June 29 to July 3 1987. The declared objective of the conference was to bring together specialists working in various fields, both academic and applied, to examine the state of our under standing of the physics of amorphous sioz from the point of view of its structure, defects (both intrinsic and extrinsic), its ability to trans port current and to trap charges, its sensitivity to irradiation, etc. For this reason, the proceedings is divided, as was the conference schedule, into a number of sections starting from a rather academic viewpoint of the internal structure of idealized Si0 and progressing 2 towards subjects of increasing technological importance such as charge transport and trapping and breakdown in thin films. The proceedings terminates with a section on novel applications of amorphous SiOz and in particular, buried oxide layers formed by ion implantation. Although every effort was made at the conference to ensure that each presentation occured in its most obvious session, in editing the proceedings we have taken the liberty of changing the order where it seems that a paper was in fact more appropriate to an alternative section. In any event, because of the natural overlap of subjects, many papers could have been suitably placed in several different sections.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Erice, Italy, April 8-20, 2000

Silicon dioxide plays a central role in most contemporary electronic and photonic technologies, from fiber optics for communications and medical applications to metal-oxide-semiconductor devices. Many of these applications directly involve point defects, which can either be introduced during the manufacturing process or by exposure to ionizing radiation. They can also be deliberately created to exploit new technologies. This book provides a general description of the influence that point defects have on the global properties of the bulk material and their spectroscopic characterization through ESR and optical spectroscopy.

This book gives the first systematic and complete survey of technology and application of amorphous silicon, a material with a huge potential in electronic applications. The book features contributions by world-wide leading researchers in this field.

The properties of Si02 and the Si-Si02 interface provide the key foundation onto which the majority of semiconductor device technology has been built Their study has consumed countless hours of many hundreds of investigators over the years, not only in the field of semiconductor devices but also in ceramics, materials science, metallurgy, geology, and mineralogy, to name a few. These groups seldom have contact with each other even though they often investigate quite similar aspects of the Si02 system. Desiring to facilitate an interaction between these groups we set out to organize a symposium on the Physics and Chemistry of Si()z and the Si-Si()z Interface under the auspices of The Electrochemical Society, which represents a number of the appropriate groups. This symposium was held at the 173rd Meeting of The Electrochemical Society in Atlanta, Georgia, May 15-20, 1988. These dates nearly coincided with the ten year anniversary of the "International Topical Conference on the Physics of Si02 and its Interfaces" held at mM in 1978. We have modeled the present symposium after the 1978 conference as well as its follow on at North Carolina State in 1980. Of course, much progress has been made in that ten years and the symposium has given us the opportunity to take a multidisciplinary look at that progress.

The first international symposium on the subject "The Physics and Chemistry of Si02 and the Si-Si02 Interface," organized in association with the Electrochemical Society, Inc. , was held in Atlanta, Georgia on May 15- 20, 1988. This symposium contained sixty papers and was so successful that the sponsoring divisions decided to schedule it on a regular basis every four years. Thus, the second symposium on "The Physics and Chemistry of Si02 and the Si02 Interface was held May 18-21, 1992 in St. Louis, Missouri, again sponsored by the Electronics and Dielectrics Science and Technology Divisions of The Electrochemical Society. This volume contains manuscripts of most of the fifty nine papers presented at the 1992 symposium, and is divided into eight chapters - approximating the organization of the symposium. Each chapter is preceded with an introduction by the session organizers. It is appropriate to provide a general assessment of the current status and understanding of the physics and chemistry of Si02 and the Si02 interface before proceeding with a brief overview of the individual chapters. Semiconductor devices have continued to scale down in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. This has resulted in thinner gate and field oxides as well as much closer spacing of individual device features. As a result, surface condition, native oxide composition, and cleaning and impurity effects now provide a much more significant contribution to the properties of oxides and their interfaces.

The two-volume Encyclopedia of Supramolecular Chemistry offers authoritative, centralized information on a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field. User-friendly and high-quality articles parse the latest supramolecular advancements and methods in the areas of chemistry, biochemistry, biology, environmental and materials science and engineering, physics, computer science, and applied mathematics. Designed for specialists and students alike, the set covers the fundamentals of supramolecular chemistry and sets the standard for relevant future research.