How fast and powerful can computers become? Will it be possible someday to create artificial brains that have intellectual capabilities comparable to those of human beings? The answers to these questions depend to a very great extent on a single factor: how small and dense we can make computer circuits. Very recently, scientists have achieved revolutionary advances that may very well radically change the future of computing.

There are significant advantages to using biological molecules in a new computational paradigm, since nature has solved similar problems to those encountered...

This book is written to conclude the NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Quantum Noise in Mesoscopic Physics" held in Delft, the Netherlands, on June 2-4, 2002. The workshop was co-directed by M. Reznikov of Israel Institute of Technology, and me. The members of the organizing committee were Yaroslav Blanter (Delft), Chirstopher Glattli (Saclay and ENS Paris) and R. Schoelkopf (Yale). The workshop was very successful, and we hope that the reader will be satisfied with the scientific level of the present book. Before addressing scientific issues I find it suitable to address several...

Polyoxometalates (POMs) form a large, distinctive class of molecular inorganic compounds of unrivaled electronic versatility and structural variation, with impacts ranging from chemistry, catalysis, and materials science to biology, and medicine. This book covers the basic principles governing the structure, bonding and reactivity of these metal-oxygen cluster anions and the major developments in their molecular science.

The book comprises three sections. The first covers areas ranging from topological principles via synthesis and stability to reactivity in solution. It also...

Refrigeration plays a prominent role in our everyday lives, and cryogenics plays a major role in medical science, space technology and the cooling of low-temperature electronics. This volume contains chapters on basic refrigeration systems, non-compression refrigeration and cooling, and topics related to global environmental issues, alternative refrigerants, optimum refrigerant selection, cost-quality optimization of refrigerants, advanced thermodynamics of reverse-cycle machines, applications in medicine, cryogenics, heat pipes, gas-solid absorption refrigeration, multisalt resorption heat...

This volume contains papers that were presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Nanostructured Materials and Coatings for Biomedical and Sensor Applications held in Kyiv, Ukraine, 4-8 August, 2002. A total of 104 scientists from 14 countries participated in our ARW, making it a really international event. Participants ranged from graduate students to senior researchers. They presented 16 tutorial lectures, 20 short talks and more than 70 posters. Invited speakers, from NATO and Partner countries, presented some of the most recent developments in physics, chemistry and technology of...

This book is a comprehensive assessment of the various theoretical and numerical methods currently in use to investigate microstructural transformations and mechanical properties of inhomogeneous systems, from the atomic scale to the macroscopic: kinetic mean-field theories, Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations, Ginzburg-Landau and phase field methods as applied to plasticity and microstructure transformation, discrete and stochastic dislocation dynamics, and cluster dynamics. Extensive surveys of major physical processes include: solidification, microstructural evolution in single...

Bonded magnets are the fastest growing sector in the entire market for magnetic materials. Their great advantages lie in the cost effective net-shape manufacturing process allowing the achievement of complex geometries and their isotropic magnetic properties. Energy products have more than quadrupled in recent years, too. The contributors to this volume present the current and future status of bonded magnets, including total world production and distribution, the markets involved, and the status of current and future applications. Current novel processing techniques are described and new...

Significant advances have been made recently in both the theoretical understanding and observation of small-scale turbulence in different layers of the Sun, and in the instabilities that give rise to them. The general development of solar physics, however, has led to such a degree of specialization as to hinder interaction between workers in the field. This book therefore presents studies of different layers and regions of the Sun, but from the same aspect, concentrating on the study of small-scale motions. The main emphasis is on the common theoretical roots of these phenomena, but the book...

An introduction and comprehensive survey of the main issues in mesosocopic physics. Topics covered include quantum Hall effects, transport through quantum wires and dots, coherence in mesoscopic systems, spintronics, disordered systems, and solid state quantum computation. Some contributions are dedicated to the connections between nanoscience and biophysics and quantum optics.
Although the topics mentioned have many aspects in common, they span a wide area of physics. It is therefore especially important to provide a broad view of this rapidly expanding field. Thanks to the excellent...

Physics of laser crystals has been constantly developing since the invention of the laser in 1960. Nowadays, more than 1500 wide-band-gap and semiconductors crystals are suitable for the production of the laser effect. Different laser devices are widely used in science, medicine and communication systems according to the progress achieved in the development of laser crystal physics. Scintillators for radiation detection also gained benefit from these developments. Most of the optically active materials offer laser radiations within the 500 to 3000 nm region with various quantum efficiency...