Oxide Nanostructures : Growth, Microstructures, and Properties

Nanomaterials, their synthesis, and property studies have been an obsession with modern current physicists, chemist, and materials scientists for their vast array of technological implications and the remarkable way their properties are modified or enhanced when the size dimensions are reduced to the realm of nanometers. Although nanomaterials, for a lot of practical purposes have been in existence since the remotest past of civilization, it is only in the last few decades that the field has been gaining the attention that it deserves from the scientific and industrial fraternity. A lot of this has to do with the immense improvement we made in tools to study and characterize these materials. Metal oxides have been one of the well documented and hottest branches of nanomaterials revolution with oxides such as TiO2, ZnO, CuO, Fe3O4, Cr2O3, Co3O4, MnO2 and many more being an integral part to a variety of technological advancements and industrial applications. From green power issues like photovoltaic cells to rechargeable batteries, from drug delivery agents to antimicrobial and cosmetic products, from superconductor materials to semiconductors and insulators, metal oxides have been omnipresent in terms of both commercial prerogatives and research highlights. This book is solely devoted towards this special section of nanomaterials with an aim to partially access the science pertaining to the oxides of metals.