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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 62

AMORPHOUS INSULATORS AND SEMICONDUCTORS
by Professor M.F. Thorpe and Professor M.I. Mitkova, Michigan State University, Eastlaning/MI (U.S.A.)

This volume (NATO ASI SERIES 3-23) presents an up-to-date overview of current areas of interest in amorphous materials and glasses, with a strong emphasis on insulating and semi-conducting materials. The lectures and seminars were designed to fill the gap between graduate courses and research seminars and very extensive coverage is given to both glass-formation and to the structure of glasses. The articles are by both physicists and chemists and involve theory and experiment. These proceedings provide a comprehensive tutorial snapshot of current research in this area.

The volume is organized into four sections, starting with general considerations of the glass forming ability and techniques for the preparation of different kinds of glasses. There has been activity on the nature of the glass transition in recent years, but it remains a difficult and poorly understood subject. The second section involves the various techniques used to investigate the structure of the glasses, and includes extensive notes on computer simulation techniques. The third section discusses vibrational states, with special emphasis on the interaction between theory and experiment. In the final section, the electronic structure of the glasses is reviewed, with an emphasis on the relationship to the electrical properties which involves an understanding of defects. Also included in this section is a review of the current thinking concerning tunneling states in glasses.
Reference books: 3-23, B136, C418, E36, E92, E118,

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