Sino-German Symposium on Advanced Electron Microscopy and Spectroscopy in Materials Science
October-November 2016, Beijing, China
The 1st Sino-German Symposium on Advanced Electron Microscopy and Spectroscopy in Materials Science was held in and supported financially by the Chinesisch-Deutsche Zentrum für Wissenschaftsförderung (CDZ) in Beijing. The 4-day symposium was organised by Professor Rafal Dunin-Borkowski from the Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons in Forschungszentrum Jülich and Professors Rong Yu, Jing Zhu and Xiaoyan Zhong from the National Center for Electron Microscopy in Beijing at Tsinghua University.
Professor Lesheng Chen, the vice-president of the Chinesisch-Deutsche Zentrum für Wissenschaftsförderung, gave the welcome speech at the opening ceremony. The event attracted more than 130 participants from more than 30 research institutes and universities, including more than 90 students and young scholars.
During 15 scientific sessions that comprised more than 40 presentations given by invited experts from China, Germany, Singapore and the United States, the participants discussed current developments and challenges in advanced electron microscopy and spectroscopy, including aberration-corrected electron microscopy, in situ characterisation methods and their applications to current and future materials science problems and to the processing of materials for the future development of materials and devices.
A wide spectrum of methodological and materials research topics was covered, including (1) Imaging and spectroscopic methods of aberration-corrected high-resolution and scanning transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and related novel developments, such as low-voltage electron microscopy and dynamic and time-resolved TEM, (2) in situ and environmental transmission electron microscopy involving nanometre-scale investigations of materials reactions and processes at different temperatures in ultraclean environment, in gases, or in liquids, (3) the development of novel methods and instrumentation for the in situ manipulation and measurements of nanomaterials, as well as (4) applications of electron microscopy and spectroscopy methods to advanced materials research on structural and functional materials, including two-dimensional materials, soft materials, materials for applications in bioscience, nanostructured functional materials, devices, metallic alloys, composite materials and structural materials for industrial engineering.
The symposium presented insights into many current research efforts in materials for energy technology, nanotechnology, future nanoelectronics, transport, product developments, soft matter in structural biology, medicine and the environment. The novel developments in instrumentation and materials that were presented documented the huge progress that has been made possible by applying the methods of aberration-corrected electron microscopy to the characterisation and understanding of novel materials and devices and their properties. Based on the presentations, it was clear that the use of correlative approaches that involve the application of different techniques to the same problem can be used to provide an improved understanding of the fundamental properties of structures and mechanisms on the atomic and molecular scale.
This outstanding and exceptionally well attended symposium reflected the large interest in these research areas and provided valuable opportunities to establish collaborations through academic student exchange and scholarship programmes, collaborative projects, international workshops and teaching, which will accelerate research collaborations between Germany and China in the fields of electron microscopy and materials science. All of the participants expressed their wish to continue scientific exchanges in future workshops.
The detailed programme of the symposium is available here.