PICO 2017 - Frontiers of Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy
May 2017
Fourth Conference on Frontiers of Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy in Kasteel Vaalsbroek from 30 April to 4 May 2017
PICO 2017, the fourth Conference on Frontiers of Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy, took place at Kasteel Vaalsbroek between 30 April and 4 May 2017. The meeting was attended by more than 150 delegates including company representatives and a good number of international colleagues. Organisers put together an oral programme of 46 scientific keynote lectures. About the same number of contributions were scheduled for poster presentations.
The event, which was organised by the Ernst Ruska-Centre in Aachen and Jülich, was supported by Thermo Fisher Scientific, CEOS GmbH, DENSsolutions BV, Gatan GmbH, JEOL (Germany) GmbH, Hitachi High-Technologies Europe GmbH, NanoMEGAS SPRL, Protochips Inc., and Nion Company.
The scientific programme of PICO 2017 contained an wide range of presentations focusing on recent advances in methods and applications for the study of structural and electronic properties of solids by the application of advanced electron microscopy techniques. Topical issues of aberration corrected electron microscopy research on (1) novel techniques and approaches, (2) advanced methods and instrumentation, (3) interface phenomena and lattice imperfections as well as (4) dynamic phenomena and in-situ techniques were highlighted in keynote presentations given by leading invited experts.
Speakers included Ursel Bangert (Limerick), Grace Burke (Manchster), Miran Ceh (Ljubljana), Rolf Erni (Dübendorf), Scott Findlay (Melbourne), Hamish Fraser (Columbus), Bert Freitag (Eindhoven), Murray Gibson (Tallahassee), Sarah Haigh (Manchester), Cecile Hebert (Lausanne), Tsukasa Hirayama (Nagoya), Ferdinand Hofer (Graz), Lothar Houben (Rehovot), Colin Humphreys (Cambridge), Lei Jin (Jülich), Kenji Kaneko (Fukuoka), Thomas Kelly (Madison), Christoph Koch (Berlin), Mathieu Kociak (Orsay), Ai Leen Koh (Stanford), Klaus Leifer (Uppsala), Markus Lentzen (Jülich), Martin Linck (Heidelberg), Paolo Longo (Pleasanton), Martina Luysberg (Jülich), Andrew Minor (Berkeley), Stavros Nicolopoulos (Brussels), Jaco Olivier (Port Elizabeth), Eva Olsson (Gothenburg), Richard Palmer (Birmingham), Bernd Rellinghaus (Dresden), Falk Röder (Dresden), Claus Ropers (Göttingen), Peter Schattschneider (Vienna), Nick Schryvers (Antwerp), Renu Sharma (Gaithersburg), Bob Sinclair (Stanford), David Smith (Tempe), Erdmann Spiecker (Erlangen), Peter van Aken (Stuttgart), James Wittig (Nashville), Qiang Xu (Delft), Nestor Zaluzec (Argonne), Xiayan Zhong (Beijing), and Yimei Zhu (Upton).
The meeting came along with two colloquia held to honour the scientific careers of Robert Sinclair and Nestor Zaluzec on the occasion of their 70th and 65th birthdays, respectively. Superb dinner speeches were given by Hamish Fraser, David Smith and James Wittig. PICO 2017 organisers are grateful to all those who shared their scientific results and contributed to the lively atmosphere of the sessions as well as the social events.
Conference proceedings have been published in as Volume 176 (2017) in a special issue of Ultramicroscopy. The fifth Conference on Frontiers of Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy, PICO 2019, is scheduled to take place again in Kasteel Vaalsbroek and will be held from 6 to 10 May 2019.
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