Dynamical Properties in Nanostructured and Low-Dimensional Materials (Second Edition)

Michael Cottam is an Emeritus Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is a former Chair of the department and has also served as Associate Dean of Science (Research) and as the Director of the Western Institute for Nanomaterials Science.The author's research expertise is in the quantum theory of condensed-matter systems, and in particular in the dynamical properties of the excitations, such as vibrational waves (phonons) and magnetic excitations (spin waves or magnons), in these materials. An area of focus in his recent work has been low-dimensional structures and nanostructured materials. He has published about 300 research articles and multiple books with IOP Publishing, Cambridge University Press, Wiley and World Scientific.

The last few years have seen dramatic advances in the growth, fabrication and characterization of low-dimensional materials (such as graphene) and nanostructures (such as those formed from ultrathin films, wires, discs and other "dots"), formed either singly or in spatially periodic arrays. Most studies of these artificially engineered materials have been driven by their potential for device applications that involve smaller and smaller physical dimensions. In particular, the dynamical properties of these materials are of fundamental interest for the devices that involve high-frequency operation and/or switching. Consequently, the different excitations, vibrational, magnetic, optical, electronic, and so on, need to be understood from the perspective of how their properties are modified in finite structures especially on the nanometre length scale due to the presence of surfaces and interfaces. Recently, the patterning of nanoelements, into periodic and other arrays, has become a focus of intense activity, leading for example to photonic crystals and their analogues such as phononic and magnonic crystals where the control of the band gaps in the excitation spectrum is a basis for applications. The nonlinear properties of the excitations are increasingly a topic of interest, as well as the linear dynamics.