Scientific Report regarding the CECAM Workshop: “Tailor-made 2D-materials and functional devices”

Organizers:

Thomas Heine, University of Leipzig (Germany)

Yandong Ma, Jacobs University Bremen (Germany)

Tim Wehling, University of Bremen (Germany)

Young-Hee Lee (Institute for Basic Science, Suwon (Korea)

Thomas Frauenheim, University of Bremen (Germany)

 

Location:

University of Bremen, Germany, 27th June until 1st of July 2016

 

I. Summary

The workshop “Tailor-made 2D-materials and functional devices” was held at the University of Bremen, Germany from June 27th to 1st 2016. In total, 76 participants from Belgium, Brazil, Finland, Ireland, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Germany, UK and US attended the workshop.

The programme consisted of 30 invited lectures, one poster session presenting 37 posters and many events (reception / conference dinner) to allow for informal exchange. The lectures were scheduled to last 40 min, including 5-10 min discussion time. In addition to this extended time for discussion, the chairpersons were instructed to introduce the subject of the session and to actively participate in the discussion. This “Gordon-conference-style” was essential to guarantee a vivid discussion. The organizers ensured that well-established scientists acted as invited speakers and chairpersons.

Concerning the poster session, we accepted only 37 posters to allow for an intense exchange of ideas at each single poster. Here, we encouraged in particular the young scientists to ask questions. The participation of PhD students was supported by partly covering local accommodation costs.

Due to the compact organization and accommodation in one hotel only all participants stayed together for the whole time of the conference, which additionally enforced the scientific discussion which was mandatory since scientists from various separated fields, i.e. advanced quantum chemistry, many-body perturbation theory, DFT and beyond, scanning probe techniques, optical spectroscopy, ARPES, etc. were attending the meeting to merge ideas and formulate a common goal for future directions and collaborations of theory groups with experimental groups.

Financial support from the DFG, Psi-k Network, and the German CECAM node multi-scale modelling from first principles, cecam-mm1p.de and the University Bremen is gratefully acknowledged.

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17th Workshop on Dynamical Phenomena at Surfaces

Report on the WDPS-17 workshop held in Milan, Italy, from Sept. 19th to 21st, 2016.

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The Workshops on Dynamical Phenomena at Surfaces (WDPS) are an active biennial series of scientific workshops that deal with dynamical aspects of surface behaviour. A special characteristic of the series is the emphasis on bringing theory and experiment together in an intimate setting, a feature that was initiated by in the first meeting of the series. The present workshop combined an exceptional setting with a programme that balanced experimental and theoretical talks, as before; however, the scientific context was expanded significantly in 2016. In the first meeting of the series, in 1983, the topic focussed exclusively on surface phonons and indeed the emphasis within that topic was a single experimental technique, namely inelastic helium atom scattering. Both the experimental technique and the tools for theoretical analysis were under active development at the time and that emphasis was reflected in the title of the first workshop, SURPHON.

The Milano workshop touched on neither topic though there were contributions on more recent developments in molecular beam scattering. The overall impression was one of a greatly expanded scientific activity within a thriving community. Topics varied from understanding bio-systems and nano-friction to macro-molecules, self-assembly and the diffusion dynamics of complex systems, all from an atomistic perspective. The dramatic evolution of scientific breadth displayed in the present meeting is a reflection of the vigour that exists in the community today. Everyone looks forward to the next meeting in the series, which was advertised as to be held in Orlando, USA, in 2018.

WDPS-17 group photo

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Psi-K Quantum-ESPRESSO School on Ab-Initio Thermal Transport

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Ab-initio prediction of thermal properties for condensed matter has been a blossoming field in the last few years, thank to its numerous applications mainly in thermoelectric materials and heat dissipation technologies. This methodology however does require to master a certain amount of expertise, both technical and theoretical, in order to be executed rigorously and efficiently. In this school, we wanted to provide an in-depth view of the theoretical framework, without neglecting the importance of applying the theory on some practical examples.

The school has been composed of theory sessions and hands-on tutorials suitable for anybody with graduate-level knowledge of condensed matter physics. As we planned to release all the software with an open-source license just after the end of the school, it was extremely useful for us to collect some feedback from this first batch of users.
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Hermes 2016. Multiscale modelling and science communication

Hermes 2016
Hermes 2016 – demanding workshop had drained all the seriousness from the participants and organisers.

Introduction

Erich Wimmer’s key note talk kick started a summer school on multi-scale materials modelling and science communication. Erich shared an exciting story of his personal journey and work in the field of computational materials science – with experience in academia, industry and even running a company (a co-founder at Materials Design).

A human element shone throughout the talk, emphasising  the importance of collaboration and the relationships between colleagues for making the numerous advances in the field possible, and importantly making the process fun and rewarding.

Following the Q&A session informal discussions continued over the dinner in the beautiful dining halls of the Cumberland Lodge. The evening ended with an informal ice-breaking game of treasure hunt, allowing the participants to relax, explore the great Windsor Park and the lodge itself while getting to know each other. Demanding several days awaited – a series of master classes each focusing on time/length scale beyond the familiar grounds for most of the participants; a series of work shops on engaging presentations, communication through infographics and a technical session on data visualization using Mathematica leading to group projects and individual presentations. Continue reading Hermes 2016. Multiscale modelling and science communication