Amorphous condensed matter can exhibit complex motions on time scales which extend up to those relevant for the functioning of biomaterials. The book presents the derivation of a microscopic theory for amorphous matter, which exhibits the evolution of such complex motions as a new paradigm of strongly interacting particle systems.e

This Encyclopedia begins with an introduction summarizing itsscope and content. Glassmaking; Structure of Glass, GlassPhysics,Transport Properties, Chemistry of Glass, Glass and Light,Inorganic Glass Families, Organic Glasses, Glass and theEnvironment, Historical and Economical Aspect of Glassmaking,History of Glass, Glass and Art, and outlinepossible newdevelopments and uses as presented by the best known people in thefield (C.A. Angell, for example). Sections and chapters arearranged in a logical order to ensure overall consistency and avoiduseless repetitions. All sections are introduced by a briefintroduction and attractive illustration. Newly investigatedtopics will be addresses, with the goal of ensuring that thisEncyclopedia remains a reference work for years to come.

A one-stop resource for researchers, developers, and post graduate students in pharmaceutical science. This handbook and ready reference provides detailed, but not overloaded information -- presenting the topic without unnecessarily complex formalism. As such, it gives a systematic and coherent overview of disordered materials for pharmaceutical applications, covering fundamental aspects, as well as preparation and characterization techniques for the target-oriented development of drug delivery systems based on disordered crystals and amorphous solids. Special attention is paid to examine the different facets and levels of disorder in their structural and dynamic aspects as well as the effect of disorder on dissolution and stability. Chapters on processing induced disorder and on patenting issues round off the book. As a result the book helps overcoming the challenges of using these materials in the pharmaceutical industry. For pharmaceutical and medicinal chemists, materials scientists, clinical physicists, and pharmaceutical laboratories looking to make better and more potent pharmaceuticals.

Geometry and topology have been a fascination in physics since the start of the 20th century. A leading example is Einstein's geometrical theory of gravity. At the beginning of the 1970s, topological ideas entered areas of condensed matter physics. These advances were driven by new seminal ideas resolving a serious contradiction between experiment and the standard interpretation of a rigorous mathematical theorem which led to the study of new exotic topological phases of matter. Topological defect driven phase transitions in thin, two dimensional films of superfluids, superconductors and crystals have provided great insight into the mechanism governing these topological phases present in those physical systems. Moreover, many of these topological properties remain 'protected' against disorder and topological distortion perturbations. An example of possible applications of such robustness to perturbations is in the search for encoding information in quantum computers, potentially providing the platform for fault-tolerant quantum computations.In the past four decades, the discovery of topological phases engendered great interest in condensed matter physics. It also attracted the attention of researchers working on quantum information, quantum materials and simulations, high energy physics and string theory. This unique volume contains articles written by some of the most prominent names in the field, including Nobel Laureate John Michael Kosterlitz and Professor Jorge V José. They originate from talks and discussions by leading experts at a recent workshop. They review previous works as well as addressing contemporary developments in the most pressing and important issues on various aspects of topological phases and topological phase transitions.

The present book describes the fundamental features of glassy disordered systems at high temperatures (close to the liquid-to-glass transition) and for the first time in a book, the universal anomalous properties of glasses at low energies (i.e. temperatures/frequencies lower than the Debye values) are depicted. Several important theoretical models for both the glass formation and the universal anomalous properties of glasses are described and analyzed. The origin and main features of soft atomic-motion modes and their excitations, as well as their role in the anomalous properties, are considered in detail. It is shown particularly that the soft-mode model gives rise to a consistent description of the anomalous properties. Additional manifestations of the soft modes in glassy phenomena are described. Other models of the anomalous glassy properties can be considered as limit cases of the soft-mode model for either very low or moderately low temperatures/frequencies.

Advances in the Chemistry and Physics of Materials is a compilation of topics on the recent developments in the areas of Materials Science.Materials Science has been a subject of major interest which has garnered significant attention over the years. Chemists and physicists have contributed extensively to this frontier research area and their synergistic efforts have led to the discovery of many new, exciting materials involving novel functions. In the light of the growing importance of the field of Materials Science, and owing to the fact that it is a subject that holds a lot of promise, internationally renowned Materials Chemist Prof. C.N.R Rao along with his colleagues at the School of Advanced Materials, at JNCASR, have compiled the contents of this book to highlight and showcase the emerging trends in materials science.It touches upon topics spanning over nanomaterials and various other classes of energy materials for harvesting, storage and conversion. The relatively new and exciting range of materials such as supramolecular, soft and biomaterials have been introduced and elucidated, in the book. Special emphasis has been laid on the synthesis, phenomena and characterization of these kinds of materials. Theoretical and Computational Chemistry has played an important role in the growth of Materials Science as a discipline, and the book covers a special topical session on the theoretical efforts in materials research.The book, packed with theory and practical aspects in a crisp and concise manner, aims to take the reader on an intense scientific expedition. The compilation provides an insight into the chemistry and physics of materials and presents up-to-date status reports which would, undoubtedly, be useful to practitioners, teachers and students.

This set of lectures provides an introduction to the structure, thermodynamics and dynamics of liquids, binary solutions and polymers at a level that will enable graduate students and non-specialist researchers to understand more specialized literature and to possibly start their own work in this field. Part I starts with the introduction of distribution functions, which describe the statistical arrangements of atoms or molecules in a simple liquid. The main concepts involve mean field theories like the Perkus-Yevick theory and the random phase approximation, which relate the forces to the distribution functions. In order to provide a concise, self-contained text, an understanding of the general statistical mechanics of an interacting many-body system is assumed. The fact that in a classic liquid the static and dynamic aspects of such a system can be discussed separately forms the basis of the two-fold structure of this approach. In order to allow polymer melts and solutions to be discussed, a short chapter acquaints readers with scaling concepts by discussing random walks and fractals. Part II of the lecture series is essentially devoted to the presentation of the dynamics of simple and complex liquids in terms of the generalized hydrodynamics concept, such as that introduced by Mori and Zwanzig. A special topic is a comprehensive introduction of the liquid-glass transition and its discussion in terms of a mode-coupling theory.