Rainer Kimmich - Böcker

Field-cycling NMR relaxometry is evolving into a methodology of widespread interest with recent technological developments resulting in powerful and versatile commercial instruments. Polymers, liquid crystals, biomaterials, porous media, tissue, cement and many other materials of practical importance can be studied using this technique.This book summarises the expertise of leading scientists in the area and the editor is well placed, after four decades of working in this field, to ensure a broad ranging and high quality title. Starting with an overview of the basic principles of the technique and the scope of its use, the content then develops to look at theory, instrumentation, practical limitations and applications in different systems. Newcomers to the field will find this book invaluable for successful use of the technique. Researchers already in academic and industrial settings, interested in molecular dynamics and magnetic resonance, will discover an important addition to the literature.

Interested in analysing complex systems? Have you considered nuclear magnetic relaxation studies to derive sound conclusions? Here’s how.Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) relaxation techniques form a family of powerful tools to study and characterize liquid, solid or semi-solid materials and systems. They provide access to details directly and in wide variable ranges. This book outlines the unparalleled potential of NMR relaxation experiments to elucidate molecular dynamics. The key concepts discussed are correlation functions and spectral densities of the thermal fluctuations of spin interactions.For users working in technology, chemical engineering, materials science, biomedicine, food science, geophysics and physical chemistry, the text explores the principles, theoretical background and descriptions of typical applications. As an essential part of relaxation data, the focus is on the statistical features of molecular dynamics. The aim is to assist the reader to acquire meaningful nuclear magnetic relaxation data sets and develop appropriate statistical models as a basis for their interpretation. This unique text is targeted to anyone performing or interested in NMR relaxation experiments from undergraduates to academics and those in industry.

When I planned this book seven years ago I had my graduate students at the University of Ulm in mind, diploma as well as doctoral students, who often asked me what literature they should work with. I used to suggest a list of ten to twenty (for my taste: excellent) treatises on NMR. Apparently this did not make them entirely happy. The difficulty which newcomers to the field face is to practise and to apply theoretical formalisms from different sources while still learning the principles of NMR and being actively engaged in NMR research. Although the text presented here is largely based on my lecture notes, the result is a "working book" rather than an introduction. It is intended to provide direct access to the basic information one needs for NMR diffusometry, relaxometry, and tomography applications. A "working book" is certainly not suitable to be read starting on page one and then carrying on until the last page. Boldly extrapolating my own reading habits to those of the typical scientist I am sure that this is not the way in which monographs of this kind are read nowadays. So my aim was to produce a treatise that offers easy and quick access for the reader to relevant matters of interest. I tried hard to ease the comprehension of NMR principles by extensive cross-referencing among the sections and chapters. Tomography, diffusometry and relaxometry are fields based on common phys­ ical principles.

Practical applications of soft-matter dynamics are of vital importance in material science, chemical engineering, biophysics and biotechnology, food processing, plastic industry, micro- and nano-system technology, and other technologies based on non-crystalline and non-glassy materials. Principles of Soft-Matter Dynamics. Basic Theories, Non-invasive Methods, Mesoscopic Aspects covers fundamental dynamic phenomena such as diffusion, relaxation, fluid dynamics, normal modes, order fluctuations, adsorption and wetting processes. It also elucidates the applications of the principles and of the methods referring to polymers, liquid crystals and other mesophases, membranes, amphiphilic systems, networks, and porous media including multiphase and multi-component materials, colloids, fine-particles, and emulsions. The book presents all formalisms, examines the basic concepts needed for applications of soft-matter science, and reviews non-invasive experimental techniques such as the multi-faceted realm of NMR methods, neutron and light quasi-elastic scattering, mechanical relaxation and dielectric broadband spectroscopy which are treated and compared on a common and consistent foundation. The standard concepts of dynamics in fluids, polymers, liquid crystals, colloids and adsorbates are comprehensively derived in a step-by-step manner. Principles and analogies common to diverse application fields are elucidated and theoretical and experimental aspects are supplemented by computational-physics considerations.Principles of Soft-Matter Dynamics. Basic Theories, Non-invasive Methods, Mesoscopic Aspects appeals to graduate and PhD students, post-docs, researchers, and industrial scientists alike.