The Nano-Micro Interface
Bridging the Microand Nano Worlds.Edited by Hans-J�rgFecht and MatthiasWerner. Wiley-VCH,Weinheim 2004.327 pp., hardcoverE 99.00.—ISBN3-527-30978-0
Nanotechnology has not only attractedsignificant attention from variousresearch communities, industries, andpolicy-makers, but has also drawn greatpublic interest and enthusiasm. A lotof progress has been made lately, partic-ularly in the past decade, and hasresulted in a huge number of publica-tions, focused journals, various scientificconferences, and monographs. Thenanotechnology field is so broad anddiverse and is evolving so rapidly thatthe information available on this topicis overwhelming. The issue is mademore complex by the fact that peopleworking in the nanotechnology fieldhave varying opinions and perspectivesabout nanotechnology. That is not sur-prising, since nanotechnology is trulyan interdisciplinary field. Scientists,engineers, and technicians from manydifferent disciplines, including physics,chemistry, surface science, materials sci-ence, biology, medical science, anddevice sciences and technology, are allparticipating and contributing to theadvancement of nanotechnology.People from different disciplines areeducated and equipped with differentways of thinking and experimentation.
Nanotechnology has significantlypromoted synergistic collaborations
among researchers from differentfields, resulting in a better fundamentalunderstanding of science and technol-ogy, which in turn causes further devel-opment in the field. However, themany gaps between different researchcommunities remain a great challenge,and hinder such synergistic collabora-tion among researchers. The book TheNano-Micro Interface: Bridging theMicro and Nano Worlds fills one ofthese gaps. More specifically, this book,as its subtitle indicates, bridges themicro and nano worlds. Nanotechnologydeals with materials and/or structures inwhich at least one characteristic dimen-sion is within the nanometer range(from several nanometers to severalhundred nanometers). Chemists andmaterials scientists synthesize andstudy such materials, typically startingfrom the molecular level, which isdescribed as the bottom-up approach,whereas electrical, electronic, andmechanical engineers designing and fab-ricating structures often rely on a litho-graphic or similar approach whichstarts with macroscopic materials, andis thus called a top-down approach.Nanomaterials and nanostructures canbe synthesized and/or fabricated byboth top-down and bottom-upapproaches. Two research communitiesmeet at this nano world from oppositedirections, with different technicalapproaches and strengths.
The book consists of two parts:Part I, Nanotechnology Research Fund-ing and Commercialization Prospects (6chapters), and Part II, Fundamentalsand Technology (17 chapters). The 23chapters were contributed by a total of71 authors from 14 countries. Contribu-tions from western European countriespredominate, but there are also notice-able representations from eastern Euro-pean countries such as Poland, theCzech Republic, and Latvia, as well asfrom Japan, Canada, and the USA.The contributing authors are from aca-demia, research institutes, industry, andgovernment-funded agencies. There-fore, readers not only get a broad spec-trum of opinions and perspectivesabout nanotechnology, but also learnof the research activities and commerci-alization efforts in various countries.The information presented in Part I isunique to this book, since most edited
monographs on nanotechnology arefocused on the technical aspects. Thetitles of these six chapters are indicativeof their contents: 1. US National Nano-technology Initiative: Planning for theNext Five Years; 2. Technological Mar-keting for Early Nanotechnology;3. Asia-Pacific Nanotechnology:Research, Development, and Commer-cialization; 4. Cooperation with Small-and Medium-Sized Enterprises BoostsCommercialization; 5. Rapid Commer-cialization of Nanotechnology inJapan: from Laboratory to Business;6. Nanomaterials and Smart MedicalDevices.
The 17 chapters in Part II are morelike a compilation of research paperscovering subjects that range from syn-thesis and self-assembly of nanomateri-als and fabrication of nanostructuresand nanostructured surfaces to devicefabrication and property characteriza-tion, and to applications of nanomateri-als and nanostructures. These chaptersprovide readers with examples of awide variety of research activities associ-ated with nanotechnology, althoughthese constitute only a small fraction ofall nanotechnology research.
There is space for improvement inthis book. For example, a more coherentlink between different chapters could beestablished, with better focus, althoughthat is always a great challenge in anedited monograph. If each chapterstarted with an executive summary orabstract, it would be really helpful forreaders to grasp some key informationwithout reading through the entirechapter. The quality varies noticeablyfrom chapter to chapter. Some textcould be better edited and polished, soas to eliminate some noticeable errors,such as “narrower bandgap withdecreasing grain size” in the table onpage VII.
The interface between the nano andmicro worlds is an excellent topic forfurther books to introduce nanotechnol-ogy to the general public and broaderscientific communities. Up to now,nanotechnology has remained generallydefined as the design, fabrication, andapplication of nanostructures and nano-materials. Past research has beenfocused mainly on the synthesis of nano-materials and fabrication of nanostruc-tures, and these efforts have resulted in
Books
3514 � 2005 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.angewandte.org Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 3514 – 3516
significant progress. One of the currentchallenges in nanotechnology is to findapplications and commercialize thenanostructures and nanomaterials byestablishing links between nanomateri-als and micro-/macrostructures and sys-tems, which require different talentsand expertise.
Guozhong CaoDepartment of Materials Science andEngineeringUniversity of WashingtonSeattle (USA)
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200485281
Chiral Photochemistry
(Series: Molecularand Supramolec-ular Photochemis-try, Vol. 11.). Editedby Yoshihisa Inoueand VaidhyanathanRamamurthy.Marcel Dekker, Inc.,New York 2004.500 pp., hardcover$ 184.00.—ISBN0-8247-5710-6
Although the founders of stereochemis-try, van�t Hoff and le Bel, suggested theuse of circularly polarized light for theso-called “absolute asymmetric synthe-sis” (AAS) as early as the 19th century,the field of “asymmetric photochemis-try” has undergone an accelerateddevelopment only during the past20 years. The recent interest in thefield is demonstrated by the fact thatthe editors of the present volume,Chiral Photochemistry, have up to noworganized two international symposiaon photochirogenesis in Japan in 2001and 2003, with a wide international par-ticipation. A Google search of the Inter-net for “photochirogenesis” (May 2005)yielded 259 results. Photochirogenesis isa field that is extremely wide and inter-disciplinary, yet is still not too large tobe discussed comprehensively in mostof its aspects within a single volume.
The editors have achieved this in amost remarkable way, by collecting thecontributions of 16 authors.
In Chapter 1, the book starts with areview on “Direct Asymmetric Photo-chemistry with Circularly PolarizedLight” by Hermann Rau (University ofStuttgart). This author revitalized theinterest in the field by a review in1983, which can be considered to be abasis of information for many newdevelopments since then. This chaptercan be recommended as a relativelyeasy-to-read general introduction tothe field of asymmetric photochemistry.In Chapter 2, “Coherent Laser Controlof the Handedness of Chiral Mole-cules”, P. Brumer and Moshe Shapirodig quite deeply into the theory. Thischapter will appeal to the theoreticallyminded photochemist. Systems such asan enantiodiscriminator, or, even moreambitiously, an enantioconverter, arediscussed thoroughly, and one can onlydream of turning them into practicallyusable devices. In the third chapter,G. L. J. A. Rikken discusses “Magneto-chiral Anisotropy in Asymmetric Photo-chemistry”, a cross-effect between natu-ral and magnetic optical activity, whichwas predicted by Groenewege in 1962,and has since been discussed by severalother authors. A comprehensive reviewon experimental results of “Enantiodif-ferentiating Photosensitized Reactions”is given by Yoshihisa Inoue in Chap-ter 4.
In Chapter 5, “Diastereodifferenti-ating Photoreactions”, Norbert Hoff-mann and Jean-Pierre Pete emphasizethe fundamental difference betweenasymmetric synthesis or chiral catalysisin the ground state, and reactions car-ried out through the photoexcited stateof molecules. In ground-state reactions,a stereoselectivity yielding de or ee val-ues of at least 95 % is today regardedas the minimum that is acceptable foruseful synthetic methods. In contrast,photochemical reactions are still faraway from reaching such high selectivi-ties. Nevertheless, as the authors pointout, mechanisms exist whereby onemight eventually achieve practicallyuseful results.
Chapter 6, by Yasushi Yokoyamaand Masako Saito, gives a comprehen-sive treatment of “Chirality in Photo-chromism”. Then, in Chapter 7, Shi-
geyoshi Sakaki and Taisuke Hamadareview “Chiral Photochemistry withTransition Metal Complexes”, a field inwhich there have been impressive devel-opments, mainly based on excellent pho-tosensitizers of the type exemplified by[Ru(bipy)3]2+.
The second part of the book, Chap-ters 8 to 16, is concerned with enantiose-lective photochemical reactions inmolecular aggregates. Chapter 8, byBenjamin Grosch and Thorsten Bach,considers “Template-Induced Enantio-selective Photochemical Reactions inSolution”. In Chapter 9, “Supramolec-ular Asymmetric Photoreactions”,Takehiko Wada and Yoshihisa Inouediscuss photochemical reactions in chir-ally modified zeolites. Chapter 10, “Cir-cular Dichroism in the Solid State”, byR. Kuroda, is the only one that is notconcerned with photochemical proc-esses, but instead deals with diagnosticmethods, which are carried out withsophisticated instrumentation. Chap-ter 11 (Masami Sakamoto), Chapter 12(John R. Scheffer), Chapter 13 (HidekoKoshima), Chapter 14 (Yuji Ohashi),Chapter 15 (V. Ramamurthy, J. Siva-guru, J. Shailaja, Arunkumar Natarajan,Lakshmi S. Kaanumalle, S. Karthikeyan,and Abraham Joy), and Chapter 16 (EijiYashima), are all concerned with chiralphotochemistry in the solid state or inpolymers.
As is often the case in multi-authorbooks, the various chapters are not sys-tematically coordinated, and in somecases are not connected at all. For exam-ple, the isomerization of cyclooctene isshown seven times in almost identicalschemes (pp. 22, 139, 148, 150, 367,377, and 566), Bach�s chiral host is dis-cussed twice (pp. 371 and 330), andSakamoto�s bromination also twice(pp. 419 and 465). These are very impor-tant examples, and it is quite natural thatthey are cited several times from differ-ent perspectives. But the overall feelingof d�j� vu grows stronger as one readsfurther. A chapter by the editors, or atleast a few pages, commenting on thestate of the art and the perspectives ina global way would have been mostuseful for specialists, who will probablynot read all the chapters in all details.
In conclusion, this book is a timelyand comprehensive review of the stateof chiral photochemistry at the begin-
AngewandteChemie
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