Recent Advances in Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy

This volume considers experimental and theoretical dielectric studies of the structure and dynamics of complex systems. Complex systems constitute an almost universal class of materials including associated liquids, polymers, biomolecules, colloids, porous materials, doped ferroelectric crystals, nanomaterials, etc. These systems are characterized by a new "mesoscopic" length scale, intermediate between molecular and macroscopic. The mesoscopic structures of complex systems typically arise from fluctuations or competing interactions and exhibit a rich variety of static and dynamic behaviour. This growing field is interdisciplinary; it complements solid state and statistical physics, and overlaps considerably with chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, and biology. A common theme in complex systems is that while such materials are disordered on the molecular scale and homogeneous on the macroscopic scale, they usually possess a certain degree of order on an intermediate, or mesoscopic, scale due to the delicate balance of interaction and thermal effects. In the present Volume it is shown how the dielectric spectroscopy studies of complex systems can be applied to determine both their structures and dynamics.

Introduction.- List of Contributors.- Dielectric Relaxation of Water in Complex Systems.- High-Frequency Dielectric Response of Hydrogen-Bonded Liquids between 0.2 and 2.5 THz.- Anomalous Diffusion, Cole-Cole Relaxation, and the Space in which they Occur: Puzzles and Problems.- Complex Dielectric Permittivity of Metal-Containing Nanocomposites: Non-Phenomenological Description.- State of Water In Confinement Near Hydrophilic Surfaces below the Freezing Temperature.- Dielectric Properties and Applications of CVD Diamonds in Millimeter and Terahertz Ranges.- Nonlinear Susceptibility Experiments in a Supercooled Liquid: Evidence of Growing Spatial Correlations to Tg.- On the Calculation of the Dielectric Properties of Liquid Ionic Systems.- Applications and Implications of Fractional Dynamics for Dielectric Relaxation.- Spectral Definition of the Characteristic Times for Anomalous Diffusion in a Potential.- High-Frequency Resonance Absorption as Evidence for Oscillation in a Well before Escape from a Metastable State in the Kramers Energy Controlled Diffusion Model.- Molecular Dynamics of Polymers at Nanometric Length Scales: From Thin Layers to Isolated Coils.- Fractional Klein-Kramers Equations: Subdiffusive and Superdiffusive Cases.- Index.-