This award will support a seminar, "Atomic Proceses Induced by Electronic Excitation in Non-Metallic Solids," organized jointly by Prof. W. Beall Fowler of Lehigh University and Prof. Noriaki Itoh of Nagoya University, Japan. Participants will meet in Nagoya September 11-14, 1989, to discuss the basic processes that occur as a result of the electronic excitation of non-metallic solids through the interaction of electrons and photons. These processes include defect reactions, transformation from crystalline to amorphous structure through defect formation, and surface phenomena including surface reactions and desorption of atoms. Laser, X-ray, or even intense conventional light illumination can give rise to the processes to be discussed at the seminar. Japanese workers have efforts under way to utilize such irradiation inthe processing of materials such as semiconductors and metals, and U.S. researchers have been active in constructing theories for the interactions at the atomic level. This seminar will bring both technologists and physical theorists together for discussions which could have important implications in the fields of commerical electron and photon devices, and materials growth and treatment.
