It is clear that concern for the preservation of the environment is growing. The IC industry is reputed to be a clean one, and the introduction of electronic systems has played a pivotal role in developing technologies that help to protect the environment. However, it must also be realized that the electronic industry consumes huge amounts of energy, chemicals, technical gases and even water. This book provides an overview of the available scientific information on environmentally benign IC production. A broad range of topics is addressed including work on resource reduction for chemicals, gases and DI water, reuse or recycling of chemicals, waste treatment strategies, environmentally friendly alternative technologies and analytical technologies for environmental studies. Undoubtedly, environmental concerns are leading to drastic changes in state-of-the-art processing, and new technologies are emerging from the strive towards lowering the environmental impact of the IC industry.
The field of magnetic ultrathin films continues to be an exciting and rapidly expanding one, as demonstrated by recent advances in giant magnetoresistance (GMR), exchange-coupled structures, and magnetic anisotropies. New GMR materials, such as Mn perovskites, have been developed, and new effects, such as exchange coupling through semiconducting interlayers, non-Heisenberg-type coupling, perpendicular GMR, and hot electron spin-valve effects, have been discovered. This book from MRS offers an international perspective on the expanding activity, and features developments in both fundamental and applied areas. Topics include: novel magnetic nanostructures and applications; growth, structure and interfaces; interlayer coupling; magnetic anisotropy; ultrathin films, magnetic domains; giant magnetoresistance; colossal magnetoresistance; spectroscopies, magneto-optical properties and granular nanostructures.
With the developing progress of materials fabrication, it is possible to produce materials with exciting electronic and magnetic properties which may be candidates for future device applications. One key class of these materials is the metallic magnetic oxide systems. This book focuses on colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) materials, including manganites and cobalites. Transport and magnetic properties and their dependence on stress, growth conditions, stoichiometry and elemental composition are explored quite extensively. However, the large magnetic fields required to obtain the CMR effect have been perceived as a technological roadblock for commercialization of this phenomenon. This has motivated research aimed both at reducing the intrinsic field dependence as well as at developing novel device structures that will reduce the required effective field. Technologically useful devices will undoubtedly involve heterostructures. Since the magnetic and transport properties are extremely
