This grant provides partial funds for the organization of the 16th International Conference on Noncontact Atomic Force Microscopy (NC-AFM) at the University of Maryland, College Park on August 5-9, 2013, specifically to support travel stipends and to enable the participation of U.S. graduate students and junior faculty members. The conference will host approximately 60 oral presentations and 100 posters focusing on topics such as sub-atomic imaging resolution in ultra-high vacuum and milli-Kelvin temperatures, nanoscale tribology, chemical force microscopy and multi-scale modeling techniques that combine atomistic simulation with classical mechanics.
Hosting the conference in the U.S. in 2013 will enable a large number of domestic investigators to attend and interact with the most prominent researchers in the field of NC-AFM, most of whom reside in Europe and Japan. Exposure of young investigators to presentations on the latest NC-AFM techniques and their application to scientific and engineering problems will help educate the next generation of scientists and raise the level of interest in the U.S., such that the country can emerge as a competitor in this important area of nanoscale science and technology.
(NC-AFM) on August 5th to 9th of 2013, at the University of Maryland, College Park. This 5-day, single-track conference featured 66 talks, two poster sessions with 40 presentations each, and a 1-day symposium on energy applications of atomic force microscopy (AFM). The symposium hosted eight international invited speakers. The conference was attended by approximately 150 participants, which is typical for this event. The majority of the presenters were from the U.S., Germany and Japan, which is significant, since U.S. attendance has been very limited in the past. This conference exposed U.S. attendees to the leading researchers in the field, including some of the scanning probe microscopy pioneers, most of which reside in Europe and Japan. The conference also provided junior investigators (in particular students and postdoctoral researchers) with a deeper understanding of force microscopy and spectroscopy techniques (especially with regards to their capabilities, limitations and areas of opportunity) and a broader vision of the field. Since AFM is one of the most widely used characterization tools in nanotechnology, organization of the NC-AFM conference in the U.S. also contributed to the general knowledge in nanoscale science, especially concerning energy-relevant applications.
