Amphiphile: Molecule (typically a surfactant) containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains.
Anisotropic: Having a directional dependence. An assembly where all
molecules point the same direction is an example of an anisotropic system, as is a material in which the refractive index
depends on the orientation of the electric field of light propagating through the system.
Anti-Stokes shift: An increase in energy between absorbed and emitted
(or scattered, in the context of Raman spectroscopy) photons due
to the material simultaneously dropping to a lower-energy
vibrational state and the energy from the vibrational transition
being added to the photon.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM): A sensitive imaging technique that
exploits a small piezoelectric tip monitored by a laser to detect
minute changes in surface topology.
Attenuation: The gradual loss in intensity through a medium; for
example, absorption processes attenuate light as it passes through
a medium.
Ballistic transport: A type of electron transport that occurs in
nanostructures whose mean-free path is less than its width. Ballistic transporters (typically metal nanowires) have very high
conductance values compared to those whose wire widths fail to
exceed the mean-free path.
Band theory: A theoretical model in solid state physics in which as the
number of quantum mechanical states with similar energies
become sufficiently large, those states can be treated as a continuous region of states called a band instead of individual states.
BET isotherm: An adsorption isotherm that describes multilayer film
formation. This isotherm assumes that physisorption on the
substrate is infinite, that no interlayer interactions exist, and that
each layer can be described by the Langmuir model.
Black lipid membrane: Lipid membrane assembled on an aperture in a
hydrophobic surface. The membrane is referred to as “black”
because it is dark when exposed to light as photons reflected off
the back half of the bilayer destructively interfere with those
bouncing off the front half.
436
Glossary
Anisotropic: Having a directional dependence. An assembly where all
molecules point the same direction is an example of an anisotropic system, as is a material in which the refractive index
depends on the orientation of the electric field of light propagating through the system.
Anti-Stokes shift: An increase in energy between absorbed and emitted
(or scattered, in the context of Raman spectroscopy) photons due
to the material simultaneously dropping to a lower-energy
vibrational state and the energy from the vibrational transition
being added to the photon.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM): A sensitive imaging technique that
exploits a small piezoelectric tip monitored by a laser to detect
minute changes in surface topology.
Attenuation: The gradual loss in intensity through a medium; for
example, absorption processes attenuate light as it passes through
a medium.
Ballistic transport: A type of electron transport that occurs in
nanostructures whose mean-free path is less than its width. Ballistic transporters (typically metal nanowires) have very high
conductance values compared to those whose wire widths fail to
exceed the mean-free path.
Band theory: A theoretical model in solid state physics in which as the
number of quantum mechanical states with similar energies
become sufficiently large, those states can be treated as a continuous region of states called a band instead of individual states.
BET isotherm: An adsorption isotherm that describes multilayer film
formation. This isotherm assumes that physisorption on the
substrate is infinite, that no interlayer interactions exist, and that
each layer can be described by the Langmuir model.
Black lipid membrane: Lipid membrane assembled on an aperture in a
hydrophobic surface. The membrane is referred to as “black”
because it is dark when exposed to light as photons reflected off
the back half of the bilayer destructively interfere with those
bouncing off the front half.
436
Glossary