Welcome to the AVS 53rd International Symposium and Exhibition!

We are pleased to present you with the Technical Program for the 2006 AVS International Symposium in San Francisco. We hope that you will enjoy the outstanding set of technical sessions that the Program Chairs and Committee Members from the AVS Divisions, Groups, and Topical Conferences have put together for this year’s Symposium.

The 2006 Technical Program continues with the tradition of AVS by addressing a broad spectrum of cutting-edge topics that focus on physical and chemical phenomenon occurring at the interfacial regions of complex systems. Whether your interests lie in traditional fields such as vacuum technology or surface characterization or you are exploring emerging topics such as nanotechnology or biological interfaces, AVS provides a quality forum to assess the state-of-the-art and look to the future. We are confident that the invited and contributed talks during this year’s AVS symposium will provide you with the high level scientific and technical exchange that is a hallmark of the AVS Symposium.

This year’s program includes a number of special technical sessions and events. Topical Conferences and Plenary Sessions on Energy Science and Technology, Nucleic Acids at Surfaces, Ultra-Bright Light Sources, Nano-scale Manufacturing, and Biomaterials Interfaces draw special attention to some particularly timely topics. In the symposium plenary lecture, Dr. Stefan Hell will discuss dramatic advances in optical imaging, extending these techniques into the nanometer scale for application to complex biological systems.

New for this year is the AVS Public Lecture that will be presented on Sunday evening by Paul Roberts, author of the book “End of Oil”. This lecture is open to the local community and will help focus attention on AVS science and technology topics of great importance to our society.

The AVS 53rd Symposium Program also benefits from a number of joint technical sessions with the American Institute of Physics, American Institute of Chemical Engineering, and the 5th Conference on Nanoimprint and Nanoprint Technology. We particularly wish to highlight the AVS/AIP Symposium honoring the 300th anniversary Ben Franklin’s birth and the Industrial Physics Forum, which explores today’s frontiers of physics research.

We strongly encourage you to visit the AVS Equipment Exhibit and the Exhibitors Workshop, featuring the latest in products, services and technical information for our scientific community. Admission for all activities in the Exhibit are free.

We are indebted to the AVS staff. Their tireless efforts and boundless energy really make working on the Program Committee a joy. We are especially grateful to Yvonne Towse and the AVS National Staff including Lynn Pizzo, Della Miller, Angela Klink, Becky York, Keith Mitchell, Peter Burke, and Jeannette DeGennaro. Their efforts help maintain the AVS International Symposium as one of the premier meetings on the calendar for scientists and technologists around the world.

We thank you for attending the AVS 53rd Symposium. We hope that you will find the Symposium to be one of the highlights of your year.

 

Terry Michalske Program Chair Sandia National Labs	Michael Grunze Vice-Program Chair University of Heidelberg, Germany	Neal Shinn Vice-Program Chair Sandia National Labs