Comments for NanoBillboard.com

Comment on Nanostructured and Advanced Materials for Applications in Sensor, Optoelectronic and Photovoltaic Technology: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute … II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry) by shyama mukherjee

shyama mukherjee — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:34:30 +0000

This is a very good giving the staus of different materials in the field of photovoltatic , sensors and nanotechnology applications.
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment on Nanoparticle Assemblies and Superstructures by R. Klajn

R. Klajn — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:20:05 +0000

I must say that I was deeply dissatisfied with this book. It appears that the editor was involved in organizing a conference on the subject and the chapters of the book are in fact contributions from the meeting. The title of the book does not reflect its contents; my estimate is that far less than half of the book is indeed about nanoparticles assemblies and superstructures. Even though this book contains contributions from some respected researchers, the writing style of some chapters is poor, not to mention numerous typos accros the entire book and even poor grammar (contributions from Asian authors). When I read books like this, I ask myself what is the point publishing collections of chapters which are rather weakly related to one another — original reports as well as reviews published in nano journals are far better in every respect.
Rating: 2 / 5

Comment on Nanomaterials: Mechanics and Mechanisms by W Boudville

W Boudville — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 20:08:57 +0000

Ramesh furnishes a description of nanomaterials well suited for an engineer or scientist from a variety of disciplines. The treatment is characterised by staying in the classical regime. This is not a quantum treatment.

Instead, the descriptions of such important ideas like deformation, elasticity and strain should be familiar from textbooks covering larger scales.

What is perhaps most different is the excursion into experimental methods. Many new techniques have been devised to handle the small scales involved, like nanoindentation and microcompression. Fascinating and ingenious. You should find the explanations easy to follow. Ramesh concentrates on the essentials of each method without drowning you in experimental details.
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment on Nanocomputers and Swarm Intelligence by Louis P. Roversi

Louis P. Roversi — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 01:34:12 +0000

It is amazing that the new trends ARE in the book – It gives a good view on the technology.

However good it is – definitvely too expensive : 4 stars only !!!
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment on Nano-Engineering in Science and Technology: An Introduction to the World of Nano-Design by James Ryley

James Ryley — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:42:22 +0000

This book centers around computational methods of assessing the behavior of nano-scale constructs, making the point that, at least with the materials he chose to investigate, the behaviors seen are not intuitive. A variety of different algorithms are examined for molecular dynamics computations, and the pros and cons (faster versus more accurate) are discussed.

The downside to this book, as the author points out right from the start, is that he only dicusses objects constructed from aluminum (in a kryton environment — no surface oxidation is allowed).

While it is interesting that nano-scale aluminum does not behave as one might think (the high proportion of surface atoms, which are not bonded like internal atoms are, makes the melting points of the objects far, far lower than normal aluminum), why base an entire book on aluminum? Diamond, carbon nanotubes, and other “typical” nano materials are completely ignored.

I suppose the book does what it sets out to do: Provide strong evidence that nano-engineering is NOT just scaled-down macro-engineering. The point is made that simulations and testing are required to determine material properties at the nano scale, and this could greatly complicate nano-design. But, I cannot help but come away disappointed from a book with dozens of simulated examples, that probably took hundreds of hours of computer time, which fails to include a single carbon-based structure. How about a SINGLE SENTENCE to the effect of “When we created this piece out of diamond, we did (or did not) see the same issues with melting points, sublimation, etc”?

But, if you want some nitty-gritty on nano-scale simulation, this is a good book. The author has done some interesting work with modifying AutoCad to work with molecular dynamics simulations, and explains which algorithms scale best for parallel processing, along with some other interesting pieces of info. No doubt this type of work will be crucial in realizing mature nanotechnology.
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment on The Nano Positioning Book: Moving and Measuring to Better than a Nanometre by Dr Yasser Ali

Dr Yasser Ali — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:57:15 +0000

This is probably the poorest book I have ever read. A true junk. what a waste of paper.

Half the book is about the linguistic difference between “accuracy” and “precision”. The other half is a general description of a capacitive sensor and a piezo actuator. You would get much better information (quality and quantity) if you spend half an hour searching the net.

A money back is not enough. A formal appology and compensation for the wasted time is due.

If you are reading this review, you are lucky. You don’t have to buy this rubbish, because it seems out of print. But, even if you find this so-called book in the street, don’t bend and pick it up. It is not worth the effort.
Rating: 1 / 5

Comment on Nano and Giga Challenges in Microelectronics by N. Konofaos

N. Konofaos — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:06:05 +0000

The hot topics of modern Microelectronics are presented in an excellent, well structured and documented way. All articles contain the most updated information on these topics, while the references in each chapter are very helpful. It is a very useful book for anyone interested not only in today’s technology but also in forthcoming emerging technologies. I strongly recommend it.
Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on Microtransducer CAD: Physical and Computational Aspects by Safa Kasap (Professor)

Safa Kasap (Professor) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:52:25 +0000

This is a much needed graduate level book/monograph on the physical principles of sensors and how sensors can be modeled. Although the physical principles are introduced and discussed using senior-level mathematics (advanced calculus, vectors and matrices) all the chapters are easy to read and follow; and provide the reader with the necessary principles and models for research and development in transducers. There are hardly any typographical errors. The book will be extremely useful in academic and corporate research and development laboratories working on sensors/transducers. It is ideal for graduate courses on sensors in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and physics departments. As a course textbook, the instructor will need to develop his own problem set as the book does not have questions or problems; though there are some examples in the book. As a graduate level course book it would score 4/5 due to a lack of end-of-chapter problems. There are numerous essential references for graduate students and engineers in this field and I found these references to be very helpful. What I like most about the book is that it has many tables of selected properties. For example, in Chapter 5 on Electrical and Thermal Properties, the authors provide several tables of properties, such as the Seebeck coefficient in semiconductors, Seebeck coefficient in metals, thermal conductivity of films etc. and they also carefully give the references from which the data were taken. I found these tables to be very useful for quickly checking on various physical properties of materials used in sensors. As a monograph, it is most highly recommended and it scores 5/5. All university and corporate research libraries should have a copy.
Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on MEMS and NEMS: Systems, Devices, and Structures by Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:50:06 +0000

Too mathematical in content… The author floods the book with useless math that you can easily derive from classic textbooks. Only the first 3 chapters are more or less ok but the references to websites and bibliography that he makes are much better than his own textbook… This book is useless to experimentalists and to people who want to delve into NEMS. Buy his earlier textbook instead which is much more detailed and which contains a lot of useful information!
Rating: 2 / 5

Comment on MEMS and NEMS: Systems, Devices, and Structures by Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 02:04:31 +0000

Some of the latter chapters do a detailed mathematical treatment of MEMS and NEMS devices, its good if that is what you are looking for, but it was hard to believe the text is written in english at times it is so incoherent. It was so bad I wouldn’t finish reading it, thankfully I was able to find it in the library so I didn’t waste any money on it.
Rating: 1 / 5