Dynamics of Systems on the Nanoscale

This book presents the structure formation and dynamics of animate and inanimate matter on the nanometre scale. This is a new interdisciplinary field known as Meso-Bio-Nano (MBN) science that lies at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology and material science. Special attention in the book is devoted to investigations of the structure, properties and dynamics of complex MBN systems by means of photonic, electronic, heavy particle and atomic collisions. This includes problems of fusion and fission, fragmentation, surfaces and interfaces, reactivity, nanoscale phase and morphological transitions, irradiation-driven transformations of complex molecular systems, collective electron excitations, radiation damage and biodamage, channeling phenomena and many more. Emphasis in the book is placed on the theoretical and computational physics research advances in these areas and related state-of-the-art experiments. Particular attention in the book is devoted to the utilization of advanced computational techniques and high-performance computing in studies of the dynamics of systems.

Ilia A. Solov’yov is a professor of theoretical molecular physics at the Institute of Physics, at the Carl von Ossietzky University (Oldenburg, Germany). He is the head of the quantum biology and computational physics group, and his current research interests cover a broad range of questions on theory of biomolecules and smart inorganic materials. Of particular interest are those biological processes that trigger energy conversion into forms that are usable for chemical transformations and are quantum mechanical in nature. For his research, he employs various levels of theory, including classical and quantum molecular dynamics, Monte-Carlo, coarse grained methods and multiscale techniques. He is a co-author of 139 peer-reviewed scientific publications since 2002 including 108 journal publications, 15 book chapters, 6 refereed conference proceedings, 5 theses, 5 monographs/books. He designed and contributed to 24 journal and book covers. He acts as a reviewer for over 30 international journals, including Nature Chemistry, Nature Materials, Physical Review Letters, PLoS One, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Alexey V. Verkhovtsev is Research Associate at the MBN Research Center in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is the former Marie Sklodowska-Curie early stage researcher and postdoctoral fellow. His research interests cover computational multiscale modeling (using classical molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry and analytical methods) of irradiation-driven processes involving nanoscopic and biomolecular systems. His current work focuses on investigating (i) nanoscale mechanisms of biological damage induced by ionizing radiation in relation to ion-beam cancer therapy and nanoparticle-enhanced radiotherapies, and (ii) fundamental processes and phenomena lying in the core of nanofabrication using charged particle beams. Since 2009, he has co-authored 4 monographs, 53 peer-reviewed publications in international journals and 6 book chapters. He acts as a reviewer for a broad variety of international journals, including Cancer Nanotechnology, Computational Materials Science, European Physical Journal D, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Physical Review A/B/E, Physical Review Letters, Radiation Physics and Chemistry.

Andrei V. Korol (Associate Professor in Physics since 1997) is an expert in theoretical atomic and cluster physics, many-body theory, physics of radiation, computational physics, software development. His current research interests cover many-body theory and its applications as well as computational physics and the modeling of complex systems. More specifically, his work focuses on the study of collisional processes involving charged projectiles, atoms, clusters and fullerenes; channeling phenomenon and radiative processes in media; the physics of undulators and free-electron lasers. He is the co-author of 9 monographs, a patent and over 170 referred publications in international journals and books of contributed papers. He also works as the referee for several scientific journals such as Physical Review A, Physical Review - Accelerators and Beams, Physical Review Letters, Journal of Physics A, B, G, European Journal of Physics D, Nuclear Instruments and Methods B.

Andrey V. Solov’yov is Professor of theoretical physics and, currently, is the director of the MBN Research Center in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is also visiting researcher at the School of Physical School of Physical Sciences, the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK, and correspondent member of the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Literature. From 2010 till 2021 he was the elected President of the Virtual Institute of Nano Films in Brussels, Belgium. His research interests cover theoretical, atomic, molecular, chemical and computational physics as well as meso-bio-nanoscience and life and material sciences at their interface with physics. Over the years, he was the team leader and/or coordinator of a large number of research projects funded by the major research funding agencies in Germany, Russia, UK and EU. He has supervised the work of many Ph.D., master and bachelor students at different universities in Germany, Russia and UK. He has authored or co-authored 11 monographs, 6 edited books, 20 edited books of abstracts, 15 journal topical issues, 3 theses, a patent and over 400 journal articles and book chapters. He is editorial board member for the international Journal of Green Nanotechnology (IJGN): Physics and Chemistry; Springer’s Cancer Nanotechnology; St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University Journal: Physics and Mathematics. During 2014-2021, he was the editor-in-chief for the European Physical Journal D: Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Plasma Physics. He also works as referee for many high-impact international scientific journals and as an expert for research funding organizations.