vi
Preface
chemical toxins in human bodies, and nanoscaled electronics that con-
stantly monitor our local environment.
Nanotechnology has an extremely broad range of potential applications
from nanoscale electronics and optics, to nanobiological systems and
nanomedicine, to new materials, and therefore it requires formation of and
contribution from multidisciplinary teams of physicists, chemists, materi-
als scientists, engineers, molecular biologists, pharmacologists and others
to work together on (i) synthesis and processing of nanomaterials and
nanostructures, (ii) understanding the physical properties related to the
nanometer scale, (iii) design and fabrication of nano-devices or devices
with nanomaterials as building blocks, and (iv) design and construction of
novel tools for characterization of nanostructures and nanomaterials.
Synthesis and processing of nanomaterials and nanostructures are the
essential aspect of nanotechnology. Studies on new physical properties and
applications of nanomaterials and nanostructures are possible only when
nanostructured materials are made available with desired size, morphology,
crystal and microstructure and chemical composition. Work on the fabri-
cation and processing of nanomaterials and nanostructures started long
time ago, far earlier than nanotechnology emerged as a new scientific field.
Such research has been drastically intensified in the last decade, resulting
in overwhelming literatures in many journals across different disciplines.
The research on nanotechnology is evolving and expanding very rapidly.
That makes it impossible for a book of this volume to cover all the aspects
of the field. The readers will readily find that this book has been focused
primarily on inorganic materials. However, efforts were made to include
the relevant organic materials such as self-assembled monolayers and
Langmuir-Blodgett films. Of course, in the synthesis and processing of
nanomaterials, organic materials often play an indispensable role, such as
surfactants in the synthesis of ordered mesoporous materials, and capping
polymers in the synthesis of monodispersed nanoparticles. The aim of this
book is to summarize the fundamentals and established techniques
of
syn-
thesis and processing of nanomaterials and nanostructures
so
as to provide
readers a systematic and coherent picture about synthesis and processing
of nanomaterials. In addition, the last two chapters of the book have been
devoted to characterization, properties and applications of nanomaterials
and nanostructures. This book would serve as a general introduction to
people just entering the field, and also for experts seeking for information
in other subfields. This is not a handbook with quick recipes for synthesis
and processing of nanomaterials; it has been the intention of the author that
this book is to be a tutorial and not a comprehensive review. Therefore, this