Table of contents

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are amongst the most explored one-dimensional nanostructures and have attracted tremendous interest from fundamental science and technological perspectives. Albeit topologically simple, they exhibit a rich variety of intriguing electronic properties, such as metallic and semiconducting behaviour. Furthermore, these structures are atomically precise, meaning that each carbon atom is still three-fold coordinated without any dangling bonds. CNTs have been used in many laboratories to build prototype nanodevices. These devices include metallic wires, field-effect transistors, electromechanical sensors and displays. They potentially form the basis of future all-carbon electronics.

This review deals with the building blocks of understanding the device physics of CNT-based nanodevices. There are many features that make CNTs different from traditional materials, including chirality-dependent electronic properties, the one-dimensional nature of electrostatic screening and the presence of several direct bandgaps. Understanding these novel properties and their impact on devices is crucial in the development and evolution of CNT applications.

The magnetic field of the Sun is the underlying cause of the many diverse phenomena combined under the heading of solar activity. Here we describe the magnetic field as it threads its way from the bottom of the convection zone, where it is built up by the solar dynamo, to the solar surface, where it manifests itself in the form of sunspots and faculae, and beyond into the outer solar atmosphere and, finally, into the heliosphere. On the way it transports energy from the surface and the subsurface layers into the solar corona, where it heats the gas and accelerates the solar wind.

Paper is a material known to everybody. It has a network structure consisting of wood fibres that can be mimicked by cooking a portion of spaghetti and pouring it on a plate, to form a planar assembly of fibres that lie roughly horizontal. Real paper also contains other constituents added for technical purposes.

This review has two main lines of thought. First, in the introductory part, we consider the physics that one encounters when 'using' paper, an everyday material that exhibits the presence of disorder. Questions arise, for instance, as to why some papers are opaque and others translucent, some are sturdy and others sloppy, some readily absorb drops of liquid while others resist the penetration of water. The mechanical and rheological properties of paper and paperboard are also interesting. They are inherently dependent on moisture content. In humid conditions paper is ductile and soft, in dry conditions brittle and hard.

In the second part we explain in more detail research problems concerned with paper. We start with paper structure. Paper is made by dewatering a suspension of fibres starting from very low content of solids. The processes of aggregation, sedimentation and clustering are familiar from statistical mechanics. Statistical growth models or packing models can simulate paper formation well and teach a lot about its structure.

The second research area that we consider is the elastic and viscoelastic properties and fracture of paper and paperboard. This has traditionally been the strongest area of paper physics. There are many similarities to, but also important differences from, composite materials. Paper has proved to be convenient test material for new theories in statistical fracture mechanics. Polymer physics and memory effects are encountered when studying creep and stress relaxation in paper. Water is a 'softener' of paper. In humid conditions, the creep rate of paper is much higher than in dry conditions.

The third among our topics is the interaction of paper with water. The penetration of water into paper is an interesting transport problem because wood fibres are hygroscopic and swell with water intake. The porous fibre network medium changes as the water first penetrates into the pore space between the fibres and then into the fibres. This is an area where relatively little systematic research has been done. Finally, we summarize our thoughts on paper physics.

Electron-energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) performed using a modern transmission scanning electron microscope (STEM) now offers sub-nanometre spatial resolution and an energy resolution down to 200 meV or less, in favourable cases. The absorption spectra, which probe empty states, cover the soft x-ray region and may be obtained under conditions of well-defined momentum transfer (angle-resolved), providing a double projection onto crystallographic site and symmetry within the density of states. By combining the very high brightness of field-emission electron sources (brighter than a synchrotron) with the high cross-section of electron scattering, together with parallel detection (not possible with scanning x-ray absorption spectroscopy), a form of spectroscopy ideally suited to the study of nanostructures, interfacial states and defects in materials is obtained with uniquely high spatial resolution. We review the basic theory, the relationship of EELS to optical properties and the dielectric response function, the removal of multiple scattering artefacts and channelling effects. We consider applications in the light of recent developments in aberration corrector and electron monochromator design. Examples are cited of inner-shell spectra obtained from individual atoms within thin crystals, of the detection of interfacial electronic states in semiconductors, of inner-shell near edge structure mapped with sub-nanometre spatial resolution in glasses and of spectra obtained from individual carbon nanotubes, amongst many others.

We describe time-dependent single-electron transport through quantum dots in the Coulomb blockade regime. Coherent dynamics of a single charge qubit in a double quantum dot is discussed with full one-qubit manipulation. Strength of decoherence is controlled with the applied voltage, but uncontrolled decoherence arises from electron–phonon coupling and background fluctuations. Then energy-relaxation dynamics is discussed for orbital and spin degree of freedom in a quantum dot. The electron–phonon interaction and spin–orbit coupling can be investigated as the dissipation problem. Finally, charge detection measurement is presented for statistical analysis of single-electron tunnelling transitions and for a sensitive qubit read-out device.

Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) phenomena are observed in the perovskite-type hole-doped manganites in which the double-exchange ferromagnetic metal phase and the charge–orbital ordered antiferromagnetic phase compete with each other. The quenched disorder arising from the inherent chemical randomness or the intentional impurity doping may cause major modifications in the electronic phase diagram as well as in the magnetoelectronic properties near the bicritical point that is formed by such a competition of the two phases. One is the phase separation phenomenon on various time-scales (from static to dynamic) and on various length-scales (from glass-like nano to grain-like micron). The other is the enhanced phase fluctuation with anomalous reduction in the transition temperatures of the competing phases (and hence in the bicritical-point temperature). The highly effective suppression of such a phase fluctuation by an external magnetic field is assigned here to the most essential ingredient of the CMR physics. Such profound and dramatic features as appearing in the bicritical region are extensively discussed in this paper with ample examples of the material systems specially designed for this purpose. The unconventional phase-controls over the competing phases in terms of magnetic/electric fields and photo-excitations are also exemplified.