Synopsis
My 12-year-old granddaughter Nina Alesi once asked me, "Grandpa, you are a scientist at IBM, so what do you do?" I tried to reply, "Oh, I watch atoms move. . . " But before I could finish this sentence, my 7-year-old grandson Vinnie interjected, "Grandpa, do atoms play soccer?" This book is about the games atoms play in diffusion and various other properties of materials. While diffusion has been studied for more than 100 years in solids, its importance, excitement, and intellectual chal lenges remain undiminished with time. It is central to understanding the relationship between the structure and properties of naturally occurring and synthetic materials, which is at the root of current technological development and innovations. The diversity of material has led to spec tacular progress in functional inorganics, polymers, granular materials, photonics, complex oxides, metallic glasses, quasi-crystals, and strongly correlated electronic materials. The integrity of complex materials pack ages is determined by diffusion, a highly interactive and synergic phe nomenon that interrelates to the microstructure, the microchemistry, and the superimposed physical fields. While the various physico-chemical properties of the materials are affected by diffusion, they determine diffu sion itself. This book, which is intended to document the diffusive processes operative in advanced technological materials, has been written by pio neers in industry and academia.
About the Author
Devendra Gupta, a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, joined the IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center at Yorktown Heights, N.Y. as a Staff Scientist in 1968. He worked concurrently at the IBM E. Fishkill facility on the Si chip and on substrate interconnection problems. He is currently an emeritus research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in the Physical Sciences Division. Additionally, he has been an adjunct professor at the Polytechnic University of New York 1975-80 and Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa 1994- to date. He was a visiting scientist at Stuttgart University and Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart Germany in 1997 and 1998. He is member of Sigma Xi - the Research Societies of America, The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society and fellow of the American Physical Society. Early in his career, he held the positions of Assistant Chief Industry, Planning Commission Government of India from 1963 to 1965 and Fellow in the Frederick Seitz Material Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, IL from 1965 to 1968. His research interests include diffusion, mass transport and defects in solids particularly in thin films for microelectronic applications. He has written over 100 articles in this field in international refereed journals, authored or edited five books and holds a patent portfolio on thin films technology at IBM.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
