Minerals as advanced materials / Минералы как передовые материалы

This book contains chapters presented at the International workshop ‘Minerals as Advanced Materials I’ that was held in the hotel of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the Imandra lake, Kola peninsula, one of the most beautiful places of the Russian North, during 8–12 July, 2007. The idea of the workshop originated from the necessity of interactions between mineralogy and material science, including all aspects of both these disciplines. Many important materials that dominate modern technological development were known to mineralogists for hundreds years, though their properties were not fully recognized. Mineralogy, on the other hand, needs new impacts for the further development in the line of modern scientific achievements, including novel insights provided by development of bio- and nanotechnologies as well as by the understanding of a deep role that information plays in the formation of natural structures and definition of natural processes. <...>