September 6th saw two short courses offered concurrently on nanostructured materials and thin film characterisation techniques, respectively. The one-day courses were conducted by the renowned speakers Professor Stan Veprek of Germany, Professor Sam Zhang from Singapore, Dr D Lovell of the United Kingdom and Dr J Smith, also from the United Kingdom.
The conference also housed an exhibition, where up to ten materials, thin films and advanced characterisation technology companies from Europe, Asia and the US that had participated in the conference set up their exhibition booths and attracted constant visits from delegates during the conference.
The "Best Paper Award" went to Dr Dominik Eder and co-researchers from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom for their paper titled "Nanostructured substoichiometric titania-supports for noble metal catalysts". Sir Harold Kroto handed over the prize of 500 Euros to Dr Eder at the conference banquet. Eighteen students were the lucky winners of the "student travel awards". The prizes were handed out at the conference banquet by Professor Nasar Ali, the conference chairman.
In his closing speech, Professor Nasar Ali thanked all the invited speakers, speakers from all over the world, participants, sponsors and University of Averio for their enthusiasm, hard work and unreserved support which made the conference a huge success. Professor Ali concluded, "...as all the support continues, nanoSMat2007 will be an even bigger success".
Contact
Professor Nasar Ali is head of Surface Engineering and Nanotechnology research at the Centre for Mechanical Technology and Automation, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, Portugal.
Tel: +351 234 370 830 (ext. 23887)
Fax: +351 234 370 953
E-mail: n.ali@mec.ua.pt
Web site: http://www.mec.ua.pt/icscnm