The investigator and colleagues organize the seventh in a series of international conferences on the electrical, transport, and optical properties of inhomogeneous media. Previous ones were held in Ohio (1977), Paris (1987), Guanajuato, Mexico (1993), St. Petersburg-Moscow (1996), Hong Kong (1999), and Snowbird, Utah (2002). These conferences have provided a forum for experimentalists and theorists to discuss the electromagnetic and elastic properties of inhomogeneous media, now often called metamaterials. ETOPIM7 brings together a diverse group of scientists, enginneers and mathematicians to report on leading research in these areas, to identify common themes and solutions that thread through a variety of problems, and to point the way for promising future research.
The electrical transport and optical properties of composites and inhomogeneous media are of fundamental importance to a broad range of highly interdisciplinary problems throughout science and engineering. Nanocomposites, metamaterials, photonic crystals and band gap structures, design of novel composites (and as discovered recently, some with the predicted ability to cloak or make objects invisible), imaging in geophysical, medical and industrial applications, the role of sea ice microstructural and optical properties in polar biology and climate, and defense applications, are all examples of topics that this conference covers. The grant supports US junior researchers and US researchers from underrepresented groups to participate in ETOPIM7. This strengthens the level of cross-disciplinary expertise in the US, allows these researchers to present their findings to an international audience, facilitates interactions between junior US researchers and senior researchers in different fields, and gives women and minorities the opportunity to strengthen their contacts and present their work.
