While it is responsible for today’s abundance of flat screens—on televisions, computers, and mobile devices—most of us have only heard of it in the ubiquitous acronym, LCD, with little thought as to exactly what it is: liquid crystal. In this book, Esther Leslie enlightens us, offering an accessible and fascinating look at—not a substance, not a technology—but a wholly different phase of matter. As she explains, liquid crystal is a curious material phase that organizes a substance’s molecules in a crystalline form yet allows them to move fluidly like water. Observed since the nineteenth century, this phase has been a deep curiosity to science and, in more recent times, the key to a new era of media technology. In between that time, as Leslie shows, it has figured in cultural forms from Romantic landscape painting to snow globes, from mountaineering to eco-disasters, and from touchscreen devices to DNA. Expertly written but accessible, Liquid Crystals recounts the unheralded but hugely significant emergence of this unique form of matter.

Physics of laser crystals has been constantly developing since the invention of the laser in 1960. Nowadays, more than 1500 wide-band-gap and semiconductors crystals are suitable for the production of the laser effect. Different laser devices are widely used in science, medicine and communication systems according to the progress achieved in the development of laser crystal physics. Scintillators for radiation detection also gained benefit from these developments. Most of the optically active materials offer laser radiations within the 500 to 3000 nm region with various quantum efficiency which fit the usual applications. However, new crystals for laser emissions are needed either in the blue, UV and VUV - region or far IR- region, especially for medicine, computer microchip production and for undiscovered practical uses. Scientific problems of the growth and properties of laser crystals are discussed in numerous books and scientific journals by many scientists working in the field. Therefore, we thought that joint discussions of the scientific and technical problems in laser physics will be useful for further developments in this area. We have proposed to held a Workshop on Physics of Laser Crystals for attempting to induce additional advances especially in solid state spectroscopy. This NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) was hold in Kharkiv • Stary Saltov th nd (Ukraine) on august 26 - September 2 , 2002, and was mainly devoted to the consideration 0 f modem approaches and Iast results in physics of laser crystals.

The Elven Crystals is a short campaign of four linked adventures: a quest across the kingdom of Ereworn to find four shards of an ancient crystal that forms a gateway to another world. But were they originally split up to stop anyone leaving this world... or to prevent something from getting in? Along the way they will find themselves searching for a kidnapped girl in a forest populated by dark and supernatural beings; hunting a corrupted nobleman through his terrifying castle; a desperate chase through a coastal village where a recent shipwreck has brought an ancient cult to light; and a battle to halt the invasion of a force of darkness and shadow.