ISBN-13: 9783540431510 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 218 str.
Die Neigung des Menschen, kleine Dinge wichtig zu nehmen, hat sehr viel GrofJes hervorgebracht. The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) The German physicist and poet Lichtenberg knew nothing about polymer films or nanoparticles. But it is quite likely that he had seen colored glasses with embedded metal nanoparticles made by unidentified Roman glassmakers or so-called ruby glasses created by Johann Kunckel (ca. 1630-1703), a Ger man alchemist. Colored glasses were one of the first nanoparticle-containing materials designed by man. Kunckel did not have the equipment to investi gate the structure of the material he had created and could not know that the deep purple color was a result of embedded gold nanoparticles. These days, however, we have excellent tools such as electron microscopes for the determination of small structures with dimensions in the nanometer range. It is now well-established that such small particles have physical and chemical properties that are very different to those of the bulk material. Indeed an exact knowledge of the nanostructure and of its relation to the physical properties turns out to be essential for the design of nanostructured granular materials and for their industrial application."