Abstract
This special issue contains a selection of papers that were presented at a symposium on Interfacial Processes and Properties of Advanced Materials (IPAM05) held at the E‐MRS Fall Meeting, Warsaw, Poland on 5–7 September 2005. The symposium was conceived and inspired by the success of its predecessor (IPAM04) held at the University of Caen, France in June 2004.
The symposium attracted over sixty contributions and was organized around five areas: Interfaces and dislocations in compound semiconductors, Gate oxide interfaces, Interfaces and defects in electroceramics, Metal–metal interfaces and interfacial modeling, and Interfaces in nano‐structured and amorphous thin‐film systems. The focus was on the influence of buried interfaces on the functionality of various electronic and opto‐electronic devices such as lasers, ferroelectric memories, CMOS and magnetic disks. Therefore the materials addressed at the symposium included compound semiconductors (e.g. GaN, CdTe, ZnO), perovskites (e.g. SrTiO~3~), dielectrics (e.g. HfO~2~, SiO~2~, Al~2~O~3~), and metals (e.g. Fe/V superlattices). The aim of the symposium was to bring together leading interface experts, both experimental and theoretical, to explore the connection between interfacial properties (atomic and electronic structure, segregation, diffusion, kinetics) and materials performance in a device application. Papers were presented that described the use of a variety of sophisticated experimental techniques to explore the interfacial properties including HRTEM, X‐ray high‐resolution diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, STM, AFM, PL spectroscopy, SIMS and electrical and magnetic measurements. The theoretical work included applications of density functional theory, atomistic simulations, dislocation theory and finite element modeling. The program stimulated many exciting and productive discussions between experimentalists and theorists. The ultimate objective was to improve our knowledge of the role of interfaces on the properties of current and emerging device materials. It is hoped that these proceedings represent a step towards that goal and will encourage further conferences in this area in the future.
The organisers gratefully acknowledge funding from the US Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG) Conference Support Program. They also would like to thank E‐MRS for their administrative support and the Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences and the Warsaw University of Technology for hosting the symposium. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)