Meeting report
2006 happenings in Poland
Wisla, Poland, September 10-14, 2006
“Happy Birthday Prof. Massalski...!!!”
The XX International Conference on Applied Crystallography was held in Wisla, Poland, September 10-14, 2006. The conference was organized by the Inst. of Material Science of Silesia in Katowice and was followed by a workshop on Strain Determination and summer schools on Polycrystalline Structure Determination and Strain/Stress Determination by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).
Participants of the XX CAC 2006 on the excursion to Istebna and Koniakow – the Beskidy Mountains region
The Committee of Crystallography and the Committee of Material Science of the Polish Acad. of Sciences were co-organizers of the events. The IUCr awarded scholarships to enable attendance by young scientists. The conference was also sponsored by the Rector of the U. of Silesia, Polish Ministry of National Education and the Polish Acad. of Sciences.
Summer School on Strain/Stress Determination by TEM
115 participants from 19 countries engaged in lively discussions throughout the plenary, oral (31) and posters (52) sessions. Plenary lecturers included: Tadeusz Massalski (USA), Jaroslav Fiala (Czech Republic), Carmelo Giacovazzo (Italy), Fujio Izumi (Japan), Gernot Kostorz (Switzerland), Henryk Morawiec (Poland), Wolfgang Neumann (Germany), Jerzy Pielaszek (Poland), Adam Pietraszko (Poland), Paolo Scardi (Italy), Veniamin Sh. Shekhtman (Russia), and Walter Steurer (Switzerland). Topics discussed included: development of methods and techniques of structure determination; crystallography of phase transformations; texture analysis studies of metals, alloys, ceramics, and polymers; thin films; quasicrystals; amorphous materials; nanomaterials; and molecular crystals.
Carmelo Giacovazzo
Tadeusz Massalski, who will celebrate his 80th birthday this year, presented a lecture at the Conference. His work in the areas of Hume-Rothery phases, phase diagrams and phase stability has been widely recognized. He discovered one of the principal reactions through which metals and alloys transform and is still very active in the field of physical metallurgy and solid state physics. The conference proceedings will be published in the Solid State Phenomena, Trans Tech Publications in Switzerland.
Armel le Bail
Social aspects of the conference included an excursion to Istebna and Koniakow in the Beskidy Mountains region. At the Workshop on Strain Determination 13 participants from 6 countries listened to the lectures of T. Ungar (Hungary) and R. Pielaszek (Poland).
Summer School on Polycrystalline Structure Determination
The Summer School on Polycrystalline Structure Determination under the direction of Carmelo Giacovazzo (Italy) and tutorship of A. Le Bail (France), Vincent Favre-Nicolin (France), and W. Lasocha (Poland) included 30 participants from 6 countries while the Summer School on Strain/Stress Determination by TEM Methods - under the direction of W. Neumann (Germany) and tutorship of P. Strunk (Germany), H. Kirmse (Germany), K. Scheerschmidt (Germany), J.P. Mornirolli (France), P. DLuzewski (Poland), and S. Kret (Poland) had 20 participants from 6 countries. Attendees had a chance to practice their skills at the extended computer sessions.Solving crystal structures from powder data and by TEM analysis is scientifically challenging but the results will be useful for many industrial and technological problems. The main purpose of these schools was to train young scientists in the use and application of methods for determination of crystal structures, strain and stress. The students worked with the following programs: EXPO 2005, FULLPROF, FOX, GRINSP and qHRTEM, CBED, FEM method for strain determination (programs: DALI, OPTIMAS). Malgorzata Karolus, Secretary of XX CAC 2006