YUCOMAT 2008: From Designing Materials on the Atomic Scale via Nanotechnologies to Advanced High-Tech Applications

From September 8-12th, 2008, Herceg Novi, Montenegro, was once again the host of the Annual Conference of the Materials Research Society of Serbia (MRS-Serbia) and Materials Research Society of Montenegro (yet to be officially established): YUCOMAT 2008, the general sponsor of which was the Institute of Technical Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The program of 2008 Conference consisted of three Plenary Sessions and five one-day Symposia (including 4 oral and 3 poster sessions), dedicated to: I) advanced methods in materials synthesis and processing; II) advanced materials for high-technology application; III) nanostructured materials; III) composites; and IV) biomaterials. The Conference also included a Workshop entitled “Creating international cooperation teams of excellence in the emerging biomaterial surface research”, funded by the European Commission, as well as a round table on “How to write a successful proposal” and the exhibition of innovative scientific equipment. Several hundred domestic and international scientists submitted 240 papers overall. Eighteen invited lectures were presented within the three Plenary Sessions, 41 presentations were delivered orally and 121 as posters. The official language of the meeting was English, with the presentations held by authors coming from 35 different countries. The selected manuscripts are scheduled to appear in "Materials and Manufacturing Processes" edition published by Taylor and Francis, “Surface Engineering” published by Maney, and “Acta Physica Polonica“ published by the Institute of Physics of PolishAcademy of Sciences. The submitted papers will undergo a rigorous peer-review, and only the most representative ones that satisfy the criteria of novelty, significance, soundness and the highest quality, will be published.

At the Opening Ceremony, Dragan Uskokovic, the President of MRS-Serbia and the Director of the Institute of Technical Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, gave a welcoming speech to the attendees. Among other things, he added: “Materials Research Society of Serbia has this year become the 27th member of the Federation of European Materials Research Societies (FEMS), which gathers more than 20,000 researchers from the field of Materials Science… The prime task we received as the youngest member of FEMS is to get actively included in the creation of entrepreneurial climate in Europe in our field, which would facilitate the formation of start-up companies led by university personnel… This is the first conference where the number of papers by international authors, from 35 countries from all continents, is bigger than those written by national authors”.

Ulrich Dahmen (University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA) opened the First Plenary Session with the lecture on advanced electron microscopy of nanoscale materials, followed by Velimir Radmilovic’s (University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA) talk on a sophisticated structural analysis of monodispersed Al3(LiScZr) core/shell nanostructures embedded in Al-rich matrix. The topic of Ivo Rangelow’s (Institute for Micro- and Nanoelectronics, Technical University Ilmenau, Ilmenau, Germany) lecture dealt with scanning proximity probes for nanoscience, and the one delivered by Wolfgang Jäger (Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany) with high-resolution TEM of layered crystals, incommensurate misfit layer compounds and their interfaces.

During the Second Plenary Session, Doug Perovic (University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada) spoke of intrinsic and extrinsic defects in colloidal photonic crystal films, Wim Bras (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France) on cordierite glass ceramics studied by X-ray scattering and electron microscopy, Danilo Suvorov (Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia) on recent advances in the development of tunable dielectric materials, Mamoru Senna (Keio University, Yokohama, Japan) on interfacial solid-state processing control for micro- and nanocomposites, Josè Kenny (University of Perugia, Terni, Italy) on processing of polymer matrix nanocomposites, and Jan Kusinski (University of Mining and Metallurgy, Krakow, Poland) on synthesis and ionic conductivity of nanocrystalline Y-doped Bi2O3 thin films.

During the Third Plenary Session, Gregory Auner (Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA) discoursed on the meeting of MEMS and nanotechnology, Richard Portier (L'Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris, France) on structural and functional  biocompatibility of new amorphous/quasicrystalline Ti-based composites, Robert Sinclair (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA) spoke of magnetic and other metallic nanoparticles for medical application, Serena Best (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK) presented nanostructured apatites as the next generation of bioactive materials, Nicolas Perez (University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain) spoke on magnetic and electronic properties of iron oxide nanoparticles of controlled size and shape, Rostislav Andrievski (Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics, RAS, Chernogolovka, Russia) on size-dependent and interfacial effects on the properties of nanostructured materials, and Dušan Petranović (Mentor Graphics Corp., San Jose, CA, USA) on competitiveness of carbon nanotubes in chip interconnect applications.

The plenary lecture of Ferdinand Hofer (Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria) on nanoanalysis of materials by means of EELS spectrum imaging in a transmission electron microscope opened Symposium C.

To encourage prospective young scientists, an assigned evaluation Committee selected the authors of the best PhD and MSc theses submitted between the two Conferences, including the best oral and poster presentations delivered (see below).

Considering the comparatively large number of presentations given by both foreign and domestic authors at YUCOMAT 2008, this conference has undoubtedly succeeded in growing into a significant international meeting in the field of advanced materials and new technologies, possessing all the elements of the highest quality manifestations of this kind in the developed world.

The next YUCOMAT Conference will also be held in Herceg Novi, from August 31st to September 4th, 2009 (www.yu-mrs.org.yu).

List of Awardees of YUCOMAT 2008

• For the best PhD thesis - to Magdalena Stevanovic (Institute of Technical Sciences of SASA, Belgrade, Serbia), “Synthesis, characterization and degradation of poly(dl-lactide-co-glycolide) nanospheres containing ascorbic acid”
• For the best MSc thesis - to Marija Jevtic (Institute of Technical Sciences of SASA, Belgrade, Serbia), “sonochemical synthesis and characterization of hydroxyapatite and poly (d.l.-lactide-co-glycolide)-hydroxyapatite composite”
• For the best oral presentation - to Sanja Ristic (Othmer-Jacobs Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY, USA), “USING DIELECTRIC RELAXATION SPECTROSCOPY (DRS) AND DYNAMIC MECHANICAL SPECTROSCOPY (DMS) TO STUDY MOLECULAR DYNAMICS OF DENDRIMERS IN HYDROPHOBIC/HYDROPHILIC MEDIA”
• For the best poster - to Joanne Kwon (Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K), “COPOLYMER/BIOCERAMIC COMPOSITE FOR COATING ORTHOPAEDIC IMPLANTS”
• For the best poster - to Asja Veber (Institute Jozef Stefan, Ljubljana, Slovenia), “The Thickness, Morphology and Structure of Sol-Gel Bi12SiO20 thin films”
• For the best poster - to Jelena Pavlicevic (Faculty of Technology, Novi Sad, Serbia), “Thermal stability of model irregular poly(urethane-isocyanurate) networks”
• For the best poster - to Katarina Marinkovic (Institute of Technical Sciences of SASA, Belgrade, Serbia), “Urea-assisted self-combustion aerosol synthesis of Y3Al5O12:Ce3+”

Dragan Uskokovic
President of MRS-Serbia and
Director of the Institute of Technical Sciences
of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts