Save-the-date: Major nanotech, energy, and biomed meeting

AVS 55th International Symposium & Exhibition in Boston, Oct. 19-24, 2008

Sept. 24, 2008 -- Next month in Boston, the AVS 55th International Symposium & Exhibition will showcase research from across the spectrum of science and engineering devoted to discoveries on the edge-in a vacuum, at interfaces, in plasmas, and in other controlled environments used to develop new materials and technologies.

AVS is an interdisciplinary nonprofit professional society, and its members come from universities, government agencies, and industrial laboratories alike. Their work represents major breakthroughs in nanotechnology, alternative energy, materials research, and medicine.

Reporters are invited to attend the conference free of charge, and registration instructions may be found at the end of this news release.

PRELIMINARY MEETING HIGHLIGHTS
Preliminary meeting highlights are listed below. The full meeting program can be accessed at http://www.avssymposium.org/Overview.asp.

1. Plenary Talk on Nanotechnology
2. Lecture by 2007 Nobel Laureate Albert Fert
3. Industrial Physics Forum
4. Frontiers in Physics
5. Ask the Experts
6. Short Courses
7. Information for Journalists

1) PLENARY TALK ON NANOTECHNOLOGY
This year's plenary talk will be delivered by Jackie Ying, the Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore. Ying's laboratory has been responsible for the development of several novel approaches that create nanocomposites, nanoporous materials and nanodevices with unique size-dependent characteristics. Her talk, "Nanostructure Processing of Advanced Catalysts and Biomaterials" will be at noon on Monday, October 20, 2008 in Ballroom B of the Hynes Convention Center. For full details, see: http://www2.avs.org/symposium/AVS55/pages/sessions_lect.html

2) LECTURE BY 2007 NOBEL LAUREATE ALBERT FERT
Fert, of Université Paris-Sud and Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/THALES in Orsay, France, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics with Peter Grünberg for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance. In Boston, Fert will describe the potential of carbon nanotubes, graphene and other molecules for spintronics-a developing field that seeks to achieve new forms of data storage by exploiting electron spin along with charge.

Fert's talk "Spin Transport between Spin-Polarized Sources and Drains: Advantage of Carbon Nanotubes on Semiconductors" will be at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 in Room 206 of the Hynes Convention Center. For full details, see: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=38.