Updates, ordering information and general comments
Introduction to Surface and Thin Film Processes
John A. Venables
Cambridge University Press (2000)
Supplementary notes © Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University
and John A. Venables
Ordering information
The book is available and can be ordered in
paperback (ISBN 0 521 78500 6) from the Cambridge University Press website in
UK/Europe/Asia. It can also be ordered in
North and South America, or you can
go directly to the
actual title. For a search, put in Venables in the home page search box and
you will get me, plus my ex-Sussex namesake Anthony Venables. The advanced
search link allows you to get me alone via "venables j a". The hardcover
(ISBN 0 521 62460 6) version has been discontinued, but some copies are
available, for example on Amazon, both new
and used.
Contents: comments, corrections, and updates
Here, on my ASU site, the Book contents may be consulted
for more detail, and some additional notes and references are given, sorted by chapter.
These notes supplement the book itself, may be added to in future, and provide links to my
Web-based resources in Surfaces and Thin Films.
These resources have been constructed in conjunction with my
Graduate courses, and
Web-based talks and articles. A few years ago I
recommended some general
Tips on searching the web for information, but now
you can either use the above resources or go straight to the amazing
Google search engine.
Reference updates
One particular point arises in conjunction with references. The book contains almost a
thousand references, and yet this long list is necessarily only indicative. I have
tended to quote the earlier and review papers on a particular topic. Library searches
using the web are now so efficient that one can enter an older reference, and find
out all subsequent papers by the same author, and/or all authors who have quoted the
reference. In this way the enquirer may quickly find out more than could possibly be
distilled into a book such as this. I have been using the
admirable Web of Science™, but web access to this and similar resources is limited to
those having a subscription, typically via their (academic) workplace, or professional
association. If you experience particular difficulties in this respect, please feel free
to contact me by email.
An exception to this quoting of earlier references is that I have omitted older
references, often in languages other than English, where I thought the papers would
better be approached via one of the reviews quoted. I had in mind that supervisors might
not thank me for increasing their bill for copying and interlibrary loan, and students
might also find that having got the paper they couldn't understand it. However, some of
these references are given in these pages for those who do want to follow them up. My own
view is that quoting such papers just to show erudition is rather annoying, especially if
one hasn't actually read them, which remains as a suspicion in the mind on reading some
such papers...
Feedback
I am getting feedback from students and faculty who have been using the book,
both for courses and for research work. This feedback has been very useful, and I trust you
will continue to use these pages for clarification, and also to give me your impressions.
Please contact me by email, but send any extensive material, such as preprints,
by regular mail, and not as attachments.
Return to
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Home page.
Latest update: 28th August 2006.