Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Prof. Christian Joachim
(CNRS, France) as well as to Ms. Charlotte Hollingworth and Ms. Stephanie Kolb
(Springer Nature Publishing) for their patient encouragement in publishing this
book. Also, I thank the associate editors of this book, Dr. Kazuya Terabe, Prof.
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Dr. Tomonobu Nakayama, Prof. James Gimzewski, Dr. Ilia
Valov, Dr. Tsuruoka Tohru and Dr. Takashi Tsuchiya, for their support in editing
this book.
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
Masakazu Aono
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Preface