Nanometer length scale

In modern materials science topics of high interest are surface structures on small (nanometer-length) scales and phase transitions in adsorbed surface layers. Many interesting effects appear at low temperatures, where quantum effects are important, which have to be taken into account in theoretical analyses. In this review a progress report is given on the state of the art of (quantum) simulations of adsorbed molecular layers. 

A second problem in these studies concerns cavitation dynamics on the nanometer length scale [86]. If sufficiently energetic, the ultrafast laser excitation of a gold nanoparticle causes strong nonequilibrium heating of the particle lattice and of the water shell close to the particle surface. Above a threshold in the laser power, which defines the onset of homogeneous nucleation, nanoscale water bubbles develop around the particles, expand, and collapse again within the first nanosecond after excitation (Fig. 9). The size of the bubbles may be examined in this way. 

Recent developments of materials and devices with structures in nanometer length scales have created new opportunities and challenges in the science of thermal transport. Interfaces play a particularly important role in the properties of nanoscale structures and nanostructured materials [97-98], This is why a renewed interest for contact resistance arose in recent years with studies of nanocomposite, semicrystalline and polycrystalline materials where contact resistances has a controlling role to determine the bulk thermal conductivity of the material [99-100],... 

The understanding of structure-dynamics-function relationships in oligonucleotides or oligonucleotide/protein complexes calls for biophysical methods that can resolve the structure and dynamics of such systems on the critical nanometer length scale. A modern electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) method called pulsed electron-electron double resonance (PELDOR or DEER) has been shown to reliably and precisely provide distances and distance distributions in the range of 1.5-8 nm. In addition, recent experiments proved that a PELDOR experiment also contains information on the orientation of labels,... 

Block copolymers, which combine polymer segments with different properties, are presumably the most widely examined system for the study of self-assembly to large-scale structures that have controlled structural and functional features on the nanometer length scale [80, 81]. Phase segregation of block copolymers, followed by selective degradation of one polymer block, leads to highly ordered porous 3D structures [82], The pore dimensions obtainable are in the micro- and mesoporous range (<50 nm), which do not meet the requirements for cellular infiltration. 

The creation of functional materials, devices and systems through control of matter on the nanometer length scale (1-100 nm), and exploitation of novel phenomena and properties (physical, chemical, biological) at that length scale. 

We have introduced you to the concepts and methods of quantum mechanics this branch of physics was developed to explain the behavior of matter on the nanometer length scale. The results of a number of key experiments demanded the creation of a new physical theory classical mechanics and electrodynamics failed completely to account for these new observations. The pivotal experiments and observations included the spectrum and temperature dependence of blackbody radiation, the very existence of stable atoms and their discrete line spectra, the... 

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