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Long awaited, this textbook fills the gap for convincing concepts to describe amorphous solids. Adopting a unique approach, the author develops a framework that lays the foundations for a theory of amorphousness. He unravels the scientific mysteries surrounding the topic, replacing rather vague notions of amorphous materials as disordered crystalline solids with the well-founded concept of ideal amorphous solids. A classification of amorphous materials into inorganic glasses, organic glasses, glassy metallic alloys, and thin films sets the scene for the development of the model of ideal amorphous solids, based on topology- and statistics-governed rules of three-dimensional sphere packing, which leads to structures with no short, mid or long-range order. This general model is then concretized to the description of specific compounds in the four fundamental classes of amorphous solids, as well as amorphous polyethylene and poly(methyl)methacrylate, emphasizing its versatility and descriptive power. Finally, he includes example applications to indicate the abundance of amorphous materials in modern-day technology, thus illustrating the importance of a better understanding of their structure and properties. Equally ideal as supplementary reading in courses on crystallography, mineralogy, solid state physics, and materials science where amorphous materials have played only a minor role until now.
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Zbigniew H. Stachurski Fundamentals of Amorphous Solids Related Titles Che, M., Védrine, J.C. (eds.) Zolotoyabko, E. Characterization of Solid Materials and Heterogeneous Catalysts Basic Concepts of Crystallography 2011 From Structure to Surface Reactivity ISBN: 978-3-527-33009-6 2012 ISBN: 978-3-527-32687-7 also available in electronic formats Raveau, B., Seikh, M. Mittemeijer, E.J., Welzel, U. (eds.) Modern Diffraction Methods 2013 ISBN: 978-3-527-32279-4 also available in electronic formats Dubois, J., Belin-Ferré, E. (eds.) Complex Metallic Alloys Fundamentals and Applications 2011 ISBN: 978-3-527-32523-8 also available in electronic formats Cobalt Oxides From Crystal Chemistry to Physics 2012 ISBN: 978-3-527-33147-5 also available in electronic formats Leng, Y. Materials Characterization Introduction to Microscopic and Spectroscopic Methods Second Edition 2013 ISBN: 978-3-527-33463-6 also available in electronic formats Zbigniew H. Stachurski Fundamentals of Amorphous Solids Structure and Properties Higher Education Press The Author Prof. Dr. Zbigniew H. Stachurski Australian National University College of Engingeering and Computer Science Research School of Engineering 0200 Canberra Australia All books published by Wiley-VCH are carefully produced. Nevertheless, authors, editors, and publisher do not warrant the information contained in these books, including this book, to be free of errors. Readers are advised to keep in mind that statements, data, illustrations, procedural details or other items may inadvertently be inaccurate. Library of Congress Card No.: applied for British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2015 by Higher Education Press. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Boschstr. 12, 69469 Weinheim, Germany, under exclusive license granted by HEP for all media and languages excluding Chinese and throughout the world excluding Mainland China, and with