Garland Science: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011 420 pages, $115 ISBN 978-0-8153-4424-7
Introductory Nanoscience is a textbook for upper-level undergraduate and beginning graduate students, particularly those with a background in chemistry.
The book discusses the structure of various nanomaterials, addresses the optical and electronic properties, and describes some important synthesis and characterization methods. In order to highlight underlying fundamental concepts, the text provides a substantial discussion of relevant results from quantum mechanics and band theory.
The text is not a comprehensive introduction to nanoscience. For instance, while there is a significant discussion of solution-phase nanoparticle growth, the section on molecular beam epitaxy is short, and a number of other synthesis methods are left for the “Thought Problems” or references sections. Similarly, only a few representative measurement techniques are described in the body of the text.
Instead of being encyclopedic in coverage, the book does an excellent job in fleshing out details often omitted in more standard textbooks. It carefully points out pitfalls in notation, for instance, noting that the [001] direction need not be perpendicular to the (001) plane for all crystal classes and noting the ambiguities in ways to report Einstein A and B coefficients. There is a relatively complete derivation of the Scherrer equation for estimating crystallite size from x-ray diffraction measurements in contrast to most texts which simply state the end result. The Kronig-Penney model for a one-dimensional periodic crystal is also described thoroughly; students less adept at linear algebra should be able to more clearly follow through the steps to the final expression for energies. At various points, the text also provides back-of-the-envelope calculations; the book explains in detail the spring model commonly used to understand frequency shifts in Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy spectra.
Introductory Nanoscience is structured like a standard text with chapter summaries, problems, and references for each chapter. The problems differ significantly in nature and difficulty from chapter to chapter. Some point to interesting results from the current literature worthy of further study, a number involve straightforward numerical substitutions while still others are relatively standard analytical problems found in traditional quantum mechanics texts. Overall, the reference sections are generous and should guide students to other resources as needed.
In summary, Introductory Nanoscience provides students entering the field with more details and explanations in comparison to other sources. As such, the book should be of value to students, although due to its lack of coverage in certain areas and unevenness in the problems, this text may not be broad or balanced enough to serve as the single required book in a course on nanoscience.
Reviewer: Yumi Ijiriis a professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Oberlin College.
