Basic X-Ray Scattering for Soft Matter

Product Description

Basic X-Ray Scattering for Soft Matter
explains basic principles and applications of x-ray scattering in a simple way using many practical examples followed by more elaborate case studies. It has been written for the large community of students and scientists in the field of soft matter (polymers, liquid crystals, colloids, self-assembled organic systems), and will appeal to those who have a more chemical-oriented background with comparatively limited mathematics training.

The book contains a separate chapter on the different types of order/disorder in soft matter that play such an important role in modern self-assembling systems. The last chapter treats soft matter surfaces and thin film that are increasingly used in coatings and in many technological applications, such as liquid crystal displays and nanostructured blockcopolymer films.

Review

‘With a unique approach, Wim de Jeu fills a gap between experimental physicists and synthetic chemists. This outstanding book gives us all the basic knowledge in X-ray scattering for studying our novel functional molecular systems.’

E.W. ‘Bert’ Meijer

Distinguished University Professor of Molecular Sciences,

Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands

‘Wimde Jeu addresses the needs of scientists who are users of x-rays to characterize soft matter. The fundamentals of x-ray scattering and diffraction are there with sufficient information for those want to delve more deeply. He shows how the methodologies are used in practice, how to realize and understand the experiment, and how to take data and translate this into something meaningful for scientists from graduate school onwards. This is an excellent resource for the classroom and makes x-ray scattering and diffraction accessible to the non-experts.’

Thomas P. Russell,

Silvio O. Conte Distinguished Professor,

Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

From the Author

This book grew out oflectures to first-year graduate students of the Department of Polymer Scienceat the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, USA) during the years 2008-2010.On that occasion, I realized that the excellent text books on x-ray scatteringI know and admire were mainly written by physicists, who used mathematics tomake things clear. This was evidently not the approach that appealed to thestudents I was teaching. First, they had a rather variable background withoften limited mathematics. Second, they were eager to know more about x-rayscattering as a user, but did not intend to become an expert. In my lectures Itried to accommodate these points. The notes were improved at various otheroccasions and ended up as this book.

About the Author

Wim de Jeu dedicated most of his scientific life to studying soft matter, starting with liquid crystals at Philips Research (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) in the early days of liquid-crystal displays. At a later stage he established the group Order/Disorder in Soft Matter at the FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, in combination with a serving as a professor of Physical Characterization of Polymers at the Eindhoven University of Technology.He investigated problems in polymer and liquid-crystal physics, including phase transitions and ordering in films and at surfaces, using modern x-ray methods. He played an active role at various synchrotrons, in particular the ESRF (Grenoble, France), and was regularly invited as speaker.Presently he is advisor at DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Aachen, Germany.