4 comments about Equilibrium Statistical Physics (3rd Edition).

1. The focus of this book is squarely on condensed matter physics and so it is definitely not a recommended resource for learning the foundations of statistial mechanics. As such, if you are new to any of the material, this book on its own will not be of much use. It is certainly not "self-contained", as stated on the back cover, as important topics, such as the various models of ferromagnetism, are not fully described or developed before approximation techniques are introduced. That said, this book contains a wealth of information that would be difficult to find in any other single volume. The authors discuss a range of topics from ferromagnetism to quantum fluids, and there is even a good chapter on computer simulations. As many of the systems encountered in condensed matter are not exactly solvable, the emphasis is necessarily on approximation techniques though there is some discussion of the few exact solutions available (for example, there is a detailed derivation of the exact solution to the 2-d Ising Model on the square lattice). An extensive bibliography contains many good references, often to the original papers. All in all, this book is recommended to anyone with a firm grounding in statistical mechanics (and quantum mechanics) who is looking to study condensed matter physics. Keep in mind that this book was published in 1994 so it may not be as current as some. A 3rd edition would be most welcome.



2. I liked this book a lot since the first time I read the first edition. It's extremely up to date, many of the examples come from cutting edge research (like the very fashionable soft condensed matter field). But beware the level is a bit high, so it's probably not a good choice to learn about this subject on your own. Its highest utility is as a help to teachers and as a companion of a course on statistical mechanics.



3. I recently used this book as a primary text in a graduate statistical mechanics course and I cannot recommend it for this purpose. I like the "spirit" of the book, but it was frustrating in several ways. Many of the derivations leave out non-trivial steps. I often found it necessary to refer to other texts and resources (e.g. Pathria's text), where similar material is covered more clearly. Beyond the first few chapters, there could be a better selection of problems. The chapters are quite dense with material, but there are not always corresponding problems. I had some reservations in choosing this text, but there are not many up-to-date graduate texts to choose from. Pathria is about the right level, but a bit too verbose, slow-moving, and dated.



4. I read the chapter on Renormalization Group but actually the mathematical derivation is vague. The author seems just want to keep the beautiful format of formula and lost the readability.

3 comments about Crystal Structure Refinement: A Crystallographer's Guide to SHELXL (International Union of Crystallography Texts on Crystallography).

1. For the beginer, it's a very good textbook with lots of examples and useful refs. However, if you are like to read the SHELXL manual, you can save your money, hehe!



2. If your a beginner or intermediate this book is great for you. The Shelx manual is as hard to read as a normal manual tends to be. This book takes you through a lot of things step by step and is a good accompanying text to the manual. Its well worth the money and written by someone who knows what he is talking about....



3. The book gives some examples on how to deal with some problems that might encounter while solving a structure. However, I suggest refer to the SHELXL user manual if one is just need to learn the software.

1 comments about Transport in Nanostructures (Cambridge Studies in Semiconductor Physics and Microelectronic Engineering).

1. As device sizes shrink on chips, earlier assumptions made in modelling electron and hole transport are starting to break down. Ferry explores the many consequences of this. Now that we can use lithography and associated techniques to make devices less than 0.1 micron, quantum effects can arise.
   
   These might include a two dimensional electron gas, where one spatial dimension is essentially suppressed by the heterostructure. Perhaps under the gate of an experimental transistor. Other contexts might be fluctuations in the atomic distribution seen by a transport electron or hole. This might importantly include fluctuations in how dopants are arranged. Leading to regions of differing conductance.
   
   Ferry investigates these and other phenomena like quantum wires and dots, at a level well placed for the graduate student or researcher.

2 comments about Thin Film Optical Filters, Third Edition.

1. This book has got it all--practical, insightful, and well-organized. Sadly, it has got just slightly too much of it all, I found it long-winded at times. That being said, still an very good book if you are interested in such effervescent matters as light and how man attempts to control it.



2. I work in a factory located in Brazil, and our business is the manufacturing of optical precision products. This book has been a great help and good evolution in the sense of helping us to develope new techniques to produce our material.

No comments about Organic Photovoltaics: Materials, Device Physics, and Manufacturing Technologies.

3 comments about On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science.

1. As a student in Material Science and Engineering, I couldn't resist when I heard of this book, and I was not disappointed. Mrs. Frankel's photography is beautiful and illustrative without losing an artful touch as far as composition is concerned, and Mr. Whitesides' explanations can be easily grasped due to their intuitive approach. For someone who wants to know more about the science behind the effects the explanations may not be detailed enough, which is why I don't rate this book a ten, but whoever desires to gain an overview of surface effects and understand the basics of it, this is the book to read. I sincerely recommend this book.



2. This is not a science book ! The photos are really great, but the name fooled me...it is not a book on surface science ! Just a photography book that have some phothos that were taken with the help of scientific media.....



3. This book consists of a number of fascinating photos drawn from the world of science. The pictures are works of art in themselves, and include a simple scale indicator to give you a clue whether what you're looking at is microscopic or full sized. The accompanying prose explains in a short description what you're looking at and why it's so interesting. The prose is brilliantly written and easy to read.

   This book is not for scientists per se, but for anyone with a fascination for the world around them. A perfect accent to any coffee table.

5 comments about Solid State Electronic Devices (5th Edition).

1. I'm an undergrad physics/engineering student. I thought this book was reasonably well written and clear. It could benefit from more example problems, and some solution techniques.
   Also, I like to have my textbooks be at a slightly higher level than the associated class. This book kind of fell short of that mark in some cases (particularly with heterojunctions and optoelectronics).
   Another observation, which isn't really a complaint, is that the book is written as a textbook rather than a reference. The formulas and charts are presented in logical sequence with the text, which makes it nice to read, but leads to a lot of paging to find that graph of mobilities vs. doping, or the formulas for the currents through a BJT, etc... (Kind of the opposite of Sze, where the formulas are collected nicely, but the exposition is virtually nonexistant).
   A final thing that somewhat annoyed me, but didn't really detract from the book, was that the author insisted on using Laplace transforms to analyze some things. Which is a bit overkill for solving things like y''=y.
   Overall, it's a good book, which explains the underlying concepts clearly.



2. I just finished reading chapter one. I know it is quite early to make judgements, but already I'm starting to feel uneasy. As someone who has always enjoyed physics and math(and done well) I feel a little more insight into what is trying to be explained would be great. Im a student at the authors institution so I think thats why we have to use this book. I agree with others that there is a lot of waisted commentary so far, but it may prove to be usefull later. It just seems like a lot is thrown into one chapter and doesn't really mix well. More time, or more explanation about what is trying to be explained would greatly benefit the first chapter.



3. If you are an EE sophomore/junior or senior and want to buy a book on semiconductor physics or devices that is both comprehensive in its depth and coverage of topics, I'd highly recommend this book. Its explanation of the working of FETs is very lucid and takes you all the way up to III-V HEMTs; similarly derivation of drift-diffusion/continuity equations for BJTs are explained in great detail and advanced devices like HBTs are also covered. Furthermore, if you are confused about energy band diagrams, this book is for you.
   Let me briefly compare it with other similar books:
   1- Semiconductor devices --Physics and Technology, 2nd edition by S. M. Sze--Standard, very good, but a little advanced textbook on semiconductors. Its explanation of FETs working and its assoicated band diagrams is not very comprehensive. Semiconductor Devices: Physics and Technology, 2nd Edition
   2- Semiconductor Device fundamentals by R. F. Peirret-- An excellent book on the fundamentals, especially concepts of band diagrams, but again I found its coverage of FET devices not as good as that of Streetman. Semiconductor Device Fundamentals
   3- Physics of semiconductor devices by M. Shur-- Shur is an expert on III-V devices modelling and simulations, but for fundamentals of semiconductor devices I won't recommend this to a sophomore! Physics of Semiconductor Devices
   4- Semiconductor Device Electronics by Grung-- An excellent book with very good coverage of FETs, but a little more advanced than Streetman. Its explanation of band diagrams and discussion on potential, voltage, electric field, capacitance and their inter-relationships is very intuitive and clear. Semiconductor-Device Electronics (Holt Rinehart and Winston Series in Electrical Engineering)



4. Wordy. Hard to understand. Meandering.
   
   As a beginner I find this book difficult and wordy and all those other adjectives. Unfortunately my university uses this book exclusively.



5. I would recommend this book for those upper-level undergraduates and graduate students who are studying this field of solid state electronics. I was familiar the Streetman's 3rd edition many years ago and this latest edition is dramatically expanded and improved. Considering how quickly technology develops, this book is reasonably current. There's a good amount of material on III-V semiconductors. One strong point of the this book is the large number of practice problems and a self-quiz at the end of each chapter. The problems are not simple but require some effort. There were a couple sections where the wording was a little confusing at first reading but this is minor.

1 comments about Elements of Modern X-ray Physics.

1. Before this book came out, the bible of the scientists in the field was either Guinier's or else, Warren's book on X-ray diffraction (both books by Dover). I think Jens Als-Nielsen's book will replace these as far as introduction to the field is concerned, because the other two books (especially warren's black book) are pages of equation after equation. Elements of Modern X-ray Physics, in contrast, is much more readable (it has colors even... wohooo). Also it covers recent techniques suxh as scattering from liquid interfaces that were not covered in previous books. Trade-off is that the book does not cover any crystallography. Author's say in the preface that they feel there are other adequate books on this subject (guinier's book prevails).

   Interesting note: Book is written not with conventional text editors but with some type of Tex/LaTex.

2 comments about A Modern Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Oxford Master Series in Statistical, Computational, and Theoretical Physics).

1. This book is short and to the point. The author has a good sense for the heart of the subject and how to present it in an efficient way. I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to either a.) learn the meat of QFT quickly or b.) wants a good reference which quickly reviews the most important parts of QFT. Since the technical details are important, I would highly recommend using this book in conjunction with a book with more technical details like the one by Peskin and Schroeder. (However, this book does have a lot of good information for its size.) Reading this book will help catalyze your understanding of the details in a more technical book.



2. This book presents the basics of QFT in a form that is very understandable. The author starts by presenting Lie algebra, which is used to justify spinors. A spinor Lagrangian then creates the Dirac equation. This approach makes the Dirac equation seem as natural as the Maxwell equation. I have previously seen two other books that took the approach of taking Schrodinger's equation and relativity and mashing the two together using Pauli matrices as glue. That never sat well with me and I was glad to see some justification. The clear, consistent, modern notation was a great help - I have seen other books that mix Einstein notation with bold-face 4-vectors using dot products, etc. I also found it helpful to have a concise book to introduce the concepts without getting bogged down in examples with equations spanning the entire page (this book does however have examples at the end of the chapters).
   
   The next chapters introduce quantization, perturbation theory, non-abelian theories, etc. I only got through half the book as it was just some summer reading for me, but paging through the latter half makes me look forward to having the time to finish it.

2 comments about Energy Landscapes: Applications to Clusters, Biomolecules and Glasses (Cambridge Molecular Science).

1. Wales must have cloned himself multiple times in order to have found time to have written such a comprehensive book. I'll leave the science for people smarter than I to judge, but I'm giving it 5 stars based on its visual impact alone. I just can't get enough of his beautifully created graphics of undulating potential energy surfaces and cluster rearangement pathways (to name but two examples). Wales is showing us the elegance of his chosen field- and in a way that's simple enough for us dullards to appreciate. I wonder if he's considered a second career in designing topologically interesting furniture, upholstered in only the finest convex polyhedra. This book will no doubt become required reading for those in the molecular simulation community and will be especially ideal for those starting out on their phd's.

   Minor points: A cursory read has shown a few typographical errors, which should be corrected in future editions. I also found the references at the end of chapters a little unwieldy. It would also have been nice for Wales to have included a bibliography of recommended texts that could be used to take some of the ideas further.




2. Potential energy surfaces are instrumental in all aspects of nanoscale phenomena and they are well suited to be treated as a unifying theme for the study of chemical physics. In this respect, this book is unique... The topics it tackles, while interest to many researchers in manifold fields, have never been distilled into a single volume. And this first effort deserves kudos.
   
   Each chapter(there are 10 chapters in the whole book)is supported with an exhaustive list of references and is reasonably self contained. Moreover, there is an immediate sense of coherence and the topical flow is rather well laid out. However, it is not a textbook with all that it implies. Wales provides a updated (as of the time of his writing (2003)) account of various topics, but none of them are treated assuming a classroom style. However, the reader is referred to the pertinent literature with valuable remarks as to what is to be found in which particular reference. The proofs to the equations are largely avoided but their origin and the physical implications are given a fair treatment. The required
   mathematical background to follow the text is rather modest, while the wide spectrum of topics covered curbs its potential as a real page turner for the novice.
   
   The illustrations are abound and in color which is a definitive plus. The binding and the paper quality is first class. The typeface is Donald Knuth`s Computer Modern with 11/14pt letter size, and this genuinely alleviates the reading process. My only quibble is the uneven quality of the images permeating the text as some of them have been culled from different sources.
   
   I think the book serves its purpose very well and it is a good introductory exposition to a subject with utmost importance in nanoscience. I highly recommend it to anyone whose work involves materials science, chemisty or physics.