This book presents the majority of the contributions to the Tenth German-Vietnamese Seminar on Physics and Engineering (GVS10) that took place in the Gustav- Stresemann-Institut (GSI) in Bonn from June 6 to June 9, 2007. In the focus of these studies are the preparation and basic properties of new material systems, related investigation methods, and practical applications. Accordingly the sections in this book are entitled electrons: transport and confinement, low-dimensional systems, magnetism, oxidic materials, organic films, new materials, and methods. The series of German-Vietnamese seminars was initiated and sponsored by the Gottlieb Daimler- and Karl Benz -Foundation since 1998 and took place alt- nately in both countries. These bilateral meetings brought together top-notch senior and junior Vietnamese scientists with German Scientists and stimulated many contacts and co-operations. Under the general title “Physics and Engine- ing” the programs covered, in the form of keynote-lectures, oral presentations and posters, experimental and theoretical cutting-edge material-physics oriented topics. The majority of the contributions was dealing with modern topics of material science, particularly nanoscience, which is a research field of high importance also in Vietnam. Modern material science allows a quick transfer of research results to technical applications, which is very useful for fast developing countries like Vietnam. On the other hand, the seminars took profit from the strong cro- fertilization of the different disciplines of physics. This book is dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the seminars and nicely shows the scientific progress in Vietnam and the competitive level reached.

Few areas of science are as interdisciplinary as materials science. Chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, and mathematics each play a part within it. The role of physics is to describe the objects, effects and phenomena at different scales (micro-, meso-, and macroscopic) as precisely as possible. Physics of Materials addresses this description at the elementary level. Based on an undergraduate level course taught at the Ecole Polytechnique, France, the main emphasis is on the conduction related phenomena (electronic properties) and the plastic behavior (ionic properties) of materials, such as metals and alloys, semiconductors, and ceramics. It assumes a basic grounding in statistical physics, quantum mechanics and elasticity but does not require prior knowledge of solid-state physics, to which it will serve as a useful introduction. The presentation of the course is followed by several examination problems, with solutions, which cover various specific applications of the general concepts and which will enable readers to test their understanding of these concepts.

Physics of New Materials After the discoveries and applications of superconductors, new ceramics, amorphous and nano-materials, shape memory and other intelligent materials, physics became more and more important, comparable with chemistry, in the research and development of advanced materials. In this book, several important fields of physics-oriented new-materials research and physical means of analyses are selected and their fundamental principles and methods are described in a simple and understandable way. It is suitable as a textbook for university materials science courses.

This new edition of the book on the properties of materials used in engineering answers some fundamental questions about how the material world around us functions. In particular: the author focuses on so-called strong materials, such as metals, wood, ceramics, glass, and bone. For each material in question, the author explains the unique physical and chemical basis for its inherent structural qualities. He also shows how an in-depth understanding of these materials' intrinsic strengths (and weaknesses) guides our engineering choices, allowing us to build the structures that support our modern society.

Made to Measure introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood, and bone to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink or paint, and that capture and store the energy of the Sun. He shows how all this is being accomplished precisely because, for the first time in history, materials are being "made to measure": designed for particular applications, rather than discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation. Now scientists literally put new materials together on the drawing board in the same way that a blueprint is specified for a house or an electronic circuit. But the designers are working not with skylights and alcoves, not with transistors and capacitors, but with molecules and atoms. This book is written in the same engaging manner as Ball's popular book on chemistry, Designing the Molecular World, and it links insights from chemistry, biology, and physics with those from engineering as it outlines the various areas in which new materials will transform our lives in the twenty-first century. The chapters provide vignettes from a broad range of selected areas of materials science and can be read as separate essays. The subjects include photonic materials, materials for information storage, smart materials, biomaterials, biomedical materials, materials for clean energy, porous materials, diamond and hard materials, new polymers, and surfaces and interfaces.

Although there are many books available on the preparation, properties, and characterization of nanomaterials, few provide an interdisciplinary account of the physical phenomena that govern the novel properties of nanomaterials. Addressing this shortfall, Nanoscale Physics for Materials Science covers fundamental cross-disciplinary concepts in mate

A comprehensive introduction to the structure, properties, and applications of materials This title provides the first unified treatment for the broad subject of materials. Authors Gersten and Smith use a fundamental approach to define the structure and properties of a wide range of solids on the basis of the local chemical bonding and atomic order present in the material. Emphasizing the physical and chemical origins of material properties, the book focuses on the most technologically important materials being utilized and developed by scientists and engineers. Appropriate for use in advanced materials courses, The Physics and Chemistry of Materials provides the background information necessary to assimilate the current academic and patent literature on materials and their applications. Problem sets, illustrations, and helpful tables complete this well-rounded new treatment. Five sections cover these important topics: * Structure of materials, including crystal structure, bonding in solids, diffraction and the reciprocal lattice, and order and disorder in solids * Physical properties of materials, including electrical, thermal, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties * Classes of materials, including semiconductors, superconductors, magnetic materials, and optical materials in addition to metals, ceramics, polymers, dielectrics, and ferroelectrics * A section on surfaces, thin films, interfaces, and multilayers discusses the effects of spatial discontinuities in the physical and chemical structure of materials * A section on synthesis and processing examines the effects of synthesis on the structure and properties of various materials This book is enhanced by a Web-based supplement that offers advanced material together with an entire electronic chapter on the characterization of materials. The Physics and Chemistry of Materials is a complete introduction to the structure and properties of materials for students and an excellent reference for scientists and engineers.