The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on "Thin Film and Small Scale Mechanical Behavior" will be held from July 25 to 30, 2010, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Financial support will help defray the conference fees and travel costs for invited speakers and discussion leaders as well as graduate students, post-docs and junior faculty members. The intellectual merit is based on the fact that the topic of the conference is highly trans-disciplinary, involving scientists with backgrounds in materials science and mechanics as well as colleagues from neighboring areas including condensed matter physics, electrical engineering and even biology. It is well established that the mechanical behavior of materials changes when they are geometrically confined to a small scale in at least one dimension. This may affect elastic, plastic and time-dependent deformation as well as degradation mechanisms such as fracture, fatigue and wear. The fundamental mechanisms and scientific understanding of these changes, however, require continued investigation and are the subject of many research projects. The study of small scale mechanical behavior has benefitted from fundamental studies of physical mechanisms linked to materials science and engineering reaching towards modern applications ranging from optical and microelectronic devices and nano- or micro-electrical mechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) to devices for energy production and storage. This research area has always taken advantage of recent progress in atomistic and micromechanical modeling, as well as materials characterization and in-situ measurements at small length scales. As such, the study of small scale mechanical behavior has fertilized many aspects of research in the fields of materials science and applied mechanics. Previous meetings have always led to intense discussions of new and unexpected results and observations, and in many cases new research and collaborations between attendees have been initiated. The 2010 Conference will continue to cover topics of lasting significance to the field such as elasticity, plastic deformation, and fracture in small structures. In addition, it will highlight topics of growing importance. Particularly, emerging topics in the area of energy conversion and storage, such as materials for batteries, will be highlighted. This GRC will have a broad impact on knowledge dissemination, stimulation of new ideas and research collaborations. At previous GRC meetings on this topic, more than 100 international experts on the subject came together, with backgrounds in the areas described above and with a large portion of participants coming from Europe and Asia. Typically, more than half of the participants are students or young researchers from academia, national laboratories, and industry. The meeting brings these young scholars into direct contact with experts in the unique atmosphere of a GRC, stimulating not only their specific research interests but even more importantly integrating them into a scientific community. We will make a strong effort to invite speakers and discussion leaders and to support students who are diverse in background, gender, and race. Also, it is anticipated that all invited speakers will be presenting for the first time at this GRC. After each oral presentation, there will be ample time for questions and in-depth discussions. For this, the discussion leaders are very important and will be carefully chosen. They are either speakers from previous GRC meetings who can provide an overarching perspective and/or very experienced people who have done distinguished work and are adept at posing stimulating questions. It is further planned to have summary discussions at the end of each session.
