An international symposium entitled Thermal and Materials Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (TMNN-2011) will be held on May 29- June 3, 2011 in Antalya, Turkey. It is envisioned to have around 150 attendees. This proposal to NSF requests funds for eight graduate and postdoctoral students and eight key leaders who will be attending the symposium and are experts on this proposed emerging area of research and engineering. Emphasis is being given to solicit participation from minority and underrepresented groups. Each invitee will be expected to participate fully and to submit a contributed paper to the symposium. Some will be asked to be the panelists. The invited participant will receive partial travel support, which will cover a portion of the estimated symposium travel expenses. The symposium will host a special graduate and postdoctoral student co-authored poster session which will be identified and marked as "Sponsored by NSF".
Intellectual Merit
The symposium will explore potential advancements in the field of thermal and materials engineering enabled by nanoscience and nanotechnology. It will play a role in bridging the gap between chemistry, physics and engineering. It will contribute to the goal of further understanding the wide diversity of length scales ranging from the nano- to macroscopic scales. It will provide a unique platform for researchers, high tech industry practitioners and educators engaged and interested in nanoscience and nanotechnology to identify significant challenges and opportunities in solving thermal and materials problems. The panel discussions will help to identify short and long term research areas for collaborations between the thermal and materials science groups.
Broader Impacts
The Symposium will offer an opportunity to establish international relationship and collaboration. The scientific and engineering education and training needs related to thermal and material science applications of nanotechnology are critical components of the symposium. It will give opportunity to the graduate students to be leaders in organizing/participating in technical sessions. The symposium organizers will ensure a diverse representation of attendees would be present, including underrepresented groups, females, students and young professionals. The workshop proceedings and the special journal issue will be broadly disseminated through various channels.
Submitted to: Sumanta Acharya, TTP Director The first International Symposium on Thermal and Materials Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (TMNN-2011) sponsored by the International Center of Heat and Mass Transfer Symposium (ICHMT) and by National Science Foundation (NSF) is chaired by Prof. Yildiz Bayazitoglu. 79 scientists from 19 countries attended. The full manuscripts accepted for presentation at the symposium were reviewed by at least one expert. Of the 59 submissions, 40 manuscripts and 11 posters were presented over three full- and two half- days. Seven keynote speakers gave presentations. Panel discussions on "the Future Research Directions of Thermal and Materials Nanoscience and Nanotechnology" and an Open Forum are held. As agreed prior to the symposium, the International Journal of Thermal Sciences (IJTS) will be publishing a Special Issue. The requested manuscripts submitted to the IJTS for the Special Issue are reviewed by the journal’s editorial system led by Bayazitoglu. The symposium travel support from NSF will be acknowledged in the preface of this special issue. Prior to the Symposium another agreement was reached with the IJTS to create the IJTS Editor’s "the Best Graduate Student Authored and Presented Paper of TMNN-2011" award. Several nominations were received. Bayazitoglu met with the other Chief Editors of the International Journal of Thermal Sciences (IJTS) on 15th of June in Frankfurt and they jointly decided to give this award to a graduate student from South Korea. The TMNN-2011 symposium certainly was a success in spite of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the Middle East crises in Egypt just few weeks before the paper submission deadline, which scared off some researchers. The symposium could not include the researchers from Japan to attend and Bayazitoglu tried diligently to convince many that the disturbances in Middle East would not affect Antalya and surroundings. The Panel Discussions on "the Future Research Directions of Thermal and Materials Nanoscience and Nanotechnology", summarized as follows: At the interface between thermal and materials science, there are opportunities in the CNT and graphene structures and their coupling, and in the development of nanoscale superconducting materials. Interfaces are very important and poorly understood Nanomedicine and Electronics cooling Applications are feasible Nanoparticles are important Future nanotechnology will need few or no moving parts to be successful due to manufacturing and reliability difficulties Current trends lean towards computational and analytical modeling to explore nanoscale effects. Experimental results must be a part of any good body of research, regardless of how tough nanoscale experiments may be. Discussion about teaching this to undergraduates. Positions on both sides of the debate, but the consensus became that this should not be included in undergraduate courses yet. First, there’s too much to cover in one semester already, and secondly, there is a shortage of useful correlations or industry-applicable situations to make this necessary. An introduction to some of the complications may be warranted to pique interests and encourage some students to pursue graduate studies in this area. Open Forum on "Suggestions For The Next Related Symposium". The summary of Open Forum Discussions were as follows Should hold this conference every 2 to 3 years The small size of the conference made for a friendly learning atmosphere This field is very interdisciplinary. and the following specific suggestions were made: Extending the conference to include micro/nano science and fluidics. More of an emphasis should be made on fundamental physics to explain why the applications worked. Consider adding several mini-courses or workshops before or at the beginning of the conference on certain topics in an attempt to level the playing field and expand the transfer of ideas. NSF Travel Award Budget Summary: The participants (the keynote or invited speakers) receiving the NSF support are asked to identify the state of the art progress and challenges for the next generations in their presentation and in the panel discussions. The participants from US institutions who attended the symposium who were keynote or invited speakers received partial NSF support. Each partially supported student presented a paper. One student was also in charge of the posters and chaired the poster session. Two out of four of graduate students were Hispanic females. These awardees were grateful to NSF for providing the partial travel support. The effect of Middle East crises may have restricted the scientists and the graduate students attending the symposium from the US institutions. One invited speaker from the US institution preferred to use his own funding for his travel. This resulted the award expenditure below the NSF grant. NSF/ONR-Sponsored Workshop: Bayazitoglu also participated in the "NSF/ONR-Sponsored Workshop on Nanoscale Thermal Transport: Science, Technology, and Society" on 4th of March 2012 Atlanta, GA. She was Co-Moderator for the Panel on Heat Transfer in Microchannels. The moderators and the panelists prepared a summary of the outcome of the panel and submitted it to the TTP Program director.
