This grant is for travel support for scientists from the former Soviet Union to attend the Fifth International Vacuum Microelectronics Conference, in Vienna, Austria, July 13-15, 1992. The Vacuum Microelectronics Conference provides a focused scientific forum to address research topics in this relatively new and emerging technological field. The scope of the conference includes fundamental theoretical and experimental physics in such topics as non-equilibrium electron transport in 3-D nanostructures, quantum mechanical tunneling through thin surface layers of insulators, metals, and semiconductors, and theoretical descriptions of surface tunneling. It also includes the physics of field emission from layered materials and fabrication and processing physics of nanostructures, and the physics and chemistry of micromachining. For a number of years, scientists from the former Soviet Union have been leaders in this field, and their participation is considered to be central to the success of the conference, considering their contributions to the field with respect to creativity, technical merit, and scientific significance. However, the recent events in the FSU have left their institutes without resources to provide travel to the conference even for their leading researchers. The request to NSF to provide travel funds to bring many of these leading scientists to the meeting is highly appropriate at this time, given the turbulent economic situation in the FSU and our desire to foster closer contact with quality scientific groups in these countries. The funds requested of NSF will be dispersed by the International Committee based on a priority listing of up to 20 scientists attached to this proposal.
