Contents



Preface

During the past decade, the essential implications of nanotechnology have been proven and it has been established as emerging technology providing new directions of modern research broadly defined as "nanoscale science and technology". With the birth of nanoscience and nanotechnology in the last two decades, the most exciting and fastest growing fields were formed to create the new functional nanoscale dimensions systems and materials. Nanotechnology; research development and commercialization offer high revolutionary instruments and techniques to investigate the material properties at the nanoscale. Such technological advances have inspired new pioneering experiments that have revealed new physical properties and effects of matter at an intermediate level between atomic and bulk. Due to the potential technological applications for nanomaterials, they have become the focus of intense investigations. These materials with different sizes and shapes, such as nanorods and nanocomposites, with identical compositions often possess special properties. The purpose of this book is to provide a perspective on the current status of nanorods and nanocomposites with the contents provided by the scientists and researchers in the related professions. As such, this book is categorized into Part I, with an emphasis on nanorods, and Part II, with the specific importance of

The book, *NANORODS* and *NANOCOMPOSITES*, provides the reader (students, scientists, and engineers working in the field of materials science and condensed matter physics) with an overview of the advances made on the synthesis of

nanorods and nanocomposite materials and their emerging applications for a better lifestyle. The nanorods section covers advanced materials (metals, semiconductors, and organic materials) for nanorods, and growth/synthesis techniques of nanorods. There are six chapters in this section, which covers synthesis, characterizations and applications of gold nanorods, semiconducting oxide nanorods, and some composite nanorods. Emerging applications of the nanorods in various fields ranging from optoelectronic devices, sensors, and electro-optical devices are presented in the chapters. As all the contributing authors of the book are active researchers, they provide an up-to-date summary of their research topics. The readers will be presented with all the recent advances on the topics covered in this book. At the end of each chapter, important outputs of the topic covered and future research directions are provided. The perspective of the research on a special kind of nanostructures,

There is one chapter to introduce the growth process of nanorods and cover the important strategies developed for the growth of various nanorods. Alsultan

The nanocomposites section covers advanced nanocomposites. There are eight chapters in this section, which covers graphene, graphene like, polymer, and

*et al.* presented the growth strategies of carbon, ZnO, gold, and magnetic nanorods. In addition, there are four chapters that cover the gas sensing application of ZnO written by Wang *et al.;* application of carbon nanorods in EO/IR detectors written by Sood *et al.;* a theoretical study on the structural and melting properties of gold nanorods written by Rida *et al.;* and metallo-dielectric colloidal films by Ana *et al*.

nanocomposites.

nanorods, is presented in the Prologue.
