Nanoscale Science and Technology summarizes six years of active research sponsored by NATO with the participation of the leading experts.
The book provides an interdisciplinary view of several aspects of physics at the atomic scale. It contains an overview of the latest findings on the transport of electrons in nanowires and nanoconstrictions, the role of forces in probe microscopy, the control of structures and properties in the nanometer range, aspects of magnetization in nanometric structures, and local probes for nondestructive measurement as provided by light and metal clusters near atomic scales.

Nanowires.- Low Voltage Nonlinear Conductance of Gold Nanowires: Room Temperature Coulomb Blockade Effect?.- Simple Model for Force Fluctuations n Nanowires.- Real Time Control of Nanowire Formation.- Forces.- Forces in Scanning Probe Microscopy.- Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy by AFM Reveals Details of Polymer Structure.- Nanomagnetism.- Quantum Resonance of the Magnetisation in a Single-Crystal of Clusters in Mn12-Acetate.- Quantum Tunneling of the Magnetization in Nano-Scale Magnets.- Mesoscopic Systems.- Transport Mesoscopic Superconductors and Superconducting/Normal Metal Contacts.- Giant In-Plane Optical Anisotropy of Semiconductor Heterostructures with No-Common-Atom.- Strong Electron Tunneling in Mesoscopic Tunnel Junctions.- Spin Textures in Quantum Dots.- Photonics.- Theory of Near Field Optics: Surface Imaging by a Levitating Particle.- Photons and Local Probes.- Quo Vadis, Near Field Optics?.- Light Emission in Silicon Nanostructures.- Confined Electrons and Photons: A Domain where New Physical Phenomena, Device Concepts and Widescale Applications Converge.- Quantum Optics of Atomic Systems Confined in a Dielectric Environment.- Optical Properties on InP Quantum Wires Grown in Hollow Cylindrical Channels of Chrysotile Asbestos.- Clusters.- Metal Clusters and Atomic Nuclei.- Solid-Liquid Interfaces.- Nanoscale Probes of the Solid-Liquid Interface.- Special Issues: Microscopy and Particles.- The First 130 Years of Electron Microscopy: Focusing, Imaging, Spectroscopy and Lithography.- The Three Families of Elementary Particles.- Author Index.