The first six volumes of this series were published under the title ‘Surface and Defect
Properties of Solids’. Our reasons for the change of heading are simple. Although, as
Senior Reporters and Contributors, we are still of the opinion that much of chemical
interest in the study of the solid state is encompassed by the title we originally chose,
we recognise that there are certain important topics and phenomena, of direct interest
to a wide audience, that are better described by the new title. The ‘atom-atom
potential’ approach to the unification of organic solid state chemistry (one of the
topics discussed at length in this volume by Ramdas and Thomas) is a case in point.
A second important reason which, with hindsight, we now more fully appreciate, is
that the original title did not, for one reason or another, arouse the curiosity of many
chemical physicists and others in interdisciplinary areas. We shall not abandon our
interest in the chemical and other consequences of structural imperfections - indeed
no comprehensive approach to the phenomenology of solids can afford to do so -but
we shall increase the area of the canvas that we propose to cover by adopting our
new title. In so doing we hope to bring together the wide spectrum of experts upon
whose services we have been fortunate to prevail in the past. Such an approach inte￾grates rationally the systematic study of surface and bulk properties, irrespective of
whether or not the latter are associated with crystalline defects. As in preceding issues,
we propose to continue with the selective rather than the comprehensive approach.