TABLE OF CONTENTS Microelectronic technologies have brought a profound revolution in human lives over the past years with continuing developments on the way. As an extension nanotechnology has appeared in the lab in the 1980's, a lot of new phenomena have been observed since then. These phenomena show contrasting characteristics as compared with that of micro-technologies. Right now although it is difficult to imagine clearly what will happen in the future, nanotechnology is predicted to change our lives more drastically than micro-technologies. "Nanotechnology" is a new interdisciplinary field based on the materials and devices on a nanometer regime. The basis of nanotechnology is the condensed matter with quantized behavior, collective effect and a highly assembled nano-unit with new functions. In spite of the nanotechnology's exciting and promising perspective, the nanoscience should go first to understand the whole picture of the nanotechnology. As branches of nanoscience, nanochemistry and nanophysics studies show many interesting phenomena at the atomic or molecular scale, which induce many new branches of nanoscience, such as nanomaterial science, nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, nanomechanics, nanomagnetics, and so on. Most of the new developments in these nanosystems will be covered in this book.
From the point of material preparation, the difference between nanophysics and nanochemistry lies in that for nanophysics one makes nanosystem from the bulk substance and for nanochemistry people prepare nanomaterials from molecules or ions. The properties of these nanosyterns are different from the bulk materials and molecules or ions. So, "nanomaterial research", as an important branch of nanoscience,...
