Micro structure and texture of real materials

The microsymposium included talks on size and grain distributions in crystallites, local defect structures, short-range order,stripe structures, local textures, residual strains in metal/matrix composites, strain gradients in multilayer systems, conelike carbon or boron nitride structures forming nanotubes, and microstructures due to plastic deformation. Different systems and compounds and the relationship of structures to material properties were presented, experimental and analytical methods were explained and prospects for the future were offered. V. Massarotti described tuning ceramic oxides properties with synthesis conditions. S.Billinge showed how to exploit the total scattering pattern to study cuprates with stripe-like microstructures and mixed valence manganites where localized and delocalized phases coexist. The use of synchrotron radiation to investigate phase, purity, texture, and grain alignement in thin Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O tapes was outlined by H. Poulsen. The use of synchrotron microbeam lines for structural analysis of plastically deformed materials was demonstrated by M. Drakopoulos. L. Bourgeois described nano-cones, tubes, helices and hats formed by sheets of BN or carbon revealing the close relation between ring-like defects and superconductivity.