Joint US - Egypt Workshop on Advanced Materials
Project Summary
The purpose of this proposal is to hold the first US - Egypt workshop on Advanced Materials in Cairo, Egypt from September 24-28, 2000. The objective of the workshop is to stimulate cooperative research in the field of Advanced Materials between American and Egyptian scientists. The cooperative research is expected to lead to economic developments involving the private sectors in Egypt and US. The workshop will deal with the fundamental science and technology of Advanced Materials that include Nanostructures and Nano Composites, Smart Materials, Thin Films and High Performance Materials. The topics to be covered include synthesis, nucleation and growth, characterization, electronic, magnetic, optical, and catalytic properties, and applications.
This is an interdisciplinary workshop drawing participants and speakers from Chemistry, Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering. We propose to bring 16 researchers from multi-disciplinary areas from United States to interact with the Egyptian researchers over a four-day workshop in Cairo. The synergism produced by bringing together the US and Egyptian researchers in the Advanced Materials areas is expected to enhance the scientific collaboration between the two countries which will take this field a step closer in realizing its enormous potential for novel technologies.
The central question around which the Advanced Materials research is now organized is can we design materials having predictable and yet often unusual properties?
Currently, there is extensive interest in systems of finite size as they often give rise to unique properties that differ from those of an extended solid or the individual molecular constituents of which they are comprised. Particularly interesting are nanoscale systems whose composition can be selectively chosen, and ones whose individual characteristics can be retained when assembled as an extended material.1-12 In this context, one promising concept is that of cluster assembly, where individual clusters of selected properties that might retain their properties, could serve as building blocks. A major long-term goal of research in this area is to develop ways of tailoring the design and formation of new nanoscale materials of chosen properties with wide-ranging potential uses including unique electronic, semiconductor, and optical properties on one hand, while on the other, developing concepts for producing materials that may display selective catalytic behavior, unusual strength and light weight, or perhaps resistance to corrosion.
It is well recognized that the behavior of nanoscale materials is intimately linked to their electronic properties, and studies of those of clusters are being actively pursued. Their restricted size often gives rise to unusual behavior arising from effects related to quantum confinement. In nanostructured materials, dimensions can be controlled, with zero-dimensional dots or nanocrystals, one-dimensional wires and two-dimensional films, each with unusual properties distinctly different from those of the same material with "bulk" dimensions.
A wide variety of scientifically and technologically interesting nanostructured materials have been synthesized and investigated during the past fifteen years. These have included metals, ceramics, and composites made by means of a number of experimental methods.1-12 While these new materials have been synthesized most elegantly from either atomic or molecular precursors, those made from bulk precursors have yielded important results as well. The structures and properties of nanostructured materials have now been elucidated in a number of important areas and a fundamental understanding of the relationships among these areas is beginning to unfold. Most important among these is (1) an understanding of the atomic-scale nature of their interfaces and their similarity with the high-angle boundaries of conventional materials and (2) the important role of spatial confinement on material properties in general, when the sizes of the nanoscale building blocks become smaller than the critical length scale for any particular property. Investigations of the mechanical, chemical, electrical, magnetic, and optical behavior of nanostructured materials have demonstrated the possibilities to engineer the properties of these new materials through control of the sizes of their constituent building blocks and the manner in which these constituents are assembled. It is now quite clear that through such nanostructuring we can access novel material property regimes in a revolutionary manner.
Optical Technology, otherwise known as Photonics, is recognized as a dominant technology for the 21st Century. Its applications span a broad spectrum including fiber-optics telecommunications, high capacity optical information storage, optical methods of medical imaging and biopsy, light activated photodynamic cancer therapy, etc. Each of these areas is currently or projected to have a billion dollar/year markets. The development of each of these applications is crucially dependent on the availability of suitable advanced materials. New generation of nanostructured materials are being developed which will have a significant impact on telecommunications, high capacity data storage and bar code systems, as well as on the newly emerging field of biophotonics, a light wave based biotechnology.
In the computational area, there is a tremendous incentive to invent new types of electronic devices and circuits that will have dimensions of the order of nanometers.13-17 In addition, new fabrication techniques will be required that can inexpensively make and connect these devices in vast quantities. The challenges are equivalent to those faced by the inventors of both the transistor and the integrated circuit, who replaced the existing vacuum-tube and wiring technologies with solid-state switches and lithographic fabrication, respectively.13-17
Two complementary avenues of research are relevant to future nanoelectronic systems: the development of a quantum-state switching device and the design of a system that will assemble itself once the discrete components have been brought together. In order to satisfy both constraints simultaneously, teams of researchers with backgrounds in physics, chemistry and computer architecture need to work together.
In the area of smart materials and self-assembly, it is well recognized that macromolecular architecture and non-covalent forces play central roles in the hierarchical self-assembly of proteins and other natural polymers into complex mesoscopic structures in living systems. Although many synthetic polymers, such as flexible-coil block copolymers, can self-organize into segregated nanostructures and mesophases, they lack rigid sequences and well-defined intermolecular interactions essential to controlling three-dimensional shape or for introducing functions in assemblies. New structural motifs for designing synthetic polymer systems capable of hierarchical self-assembly into complex, well-ordered, functional mesostructures are being explored.18,19 Investigation of amphiphilic rod-coil block copolymers has resulted in the controlled self-assembly of various 3D mesostructures such as hollow spheres, microtubules, vesicles, lamellae, and doughnuts. These supramolecular assemblies with size scales in the 50 nm to 200 micrometer range and electroactive/photoactive functions are the largest self-assembled objects outside of living systems. Besides their promise as model systems for fundamental studies in the new field of supramolecular polymer chemistry, these self-assembling polymer mesostructures have many potential technological applications.
It is clear from the above points that there is very real progress on many different fronts of advanced materials. However, there are still significant opportunities and requirements for invention and discovery based on the unique properties and potential applications of advanced materials.
While there have been several conferences and workshops on Nanostructured Materials in recent years, a multidisciplinary forum to discuss this and the complementary fields of advance materials with specific focus on Egypt-US interactions has not been organized. We plan to bring together Egyptian and American researchers from various disciplines (e.g. chemistry, condensed matter physics, materials science and engineering) so that outstanding problems can be brought into focus and new trends set for future investigations. We will not only assess the current status of the field of advanced materials, but more importantly we will also discuss cooperative research and joint projects between the Egyptian and the American scientists and we will also discuss the technological and economical impact of these projects. The proposed scientific activities are expected to stimulate further industrial and technological applications, which would lead to economic developments involving the private sectors in Egypt and United States.
Organizers:
United States
Dr. M. S. El-Shall
Professor of Chemistry
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA 23284-2006
Dr. M. A. El-Sayed
Julius Brown Professor
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0400
Egypt Dr. Sherif Eissa
President, National Research Center
Dokki, Cairo, Egypt
Host: National Research Center, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt
Sponsor: National Science Foundation, USA
The workshop will start on Sunday, September 24 and conclude on Thursday, September 28. There will be five sessions of talks and discussions dealing with:
The concluding session of the workshop will include a panel discussion of the outstanding problems in the fields of particular interest to the development in Egypt, the plans for joint projects and research collaboration.
Proceedings
Papers presented at the meeting along with the curriculum vitas of the participants will be distributed before the workshop.
Language: The official language is English.
Social Events
A reception, workshop Dinner, and an excursion to the pyramids and the Egyptian museum will be scheduled for the workshop participants and their companions.
Egypt Team
The Egyptian participants will be selected from academia, government laboratories and private sectors in Egypt. A preliminary meeting took place between Dr. Sherif Eissa, the president of the National Research Center in Egypt and Professors El-Shall and El-Sayed, the US organizers, on March 5, 2000 in Cairo. Based on the discussion of the selected research areas of the workshop and the background of the US participants, Dr. Eissa established a selection committee to identify and select the Egyptian participants with strong background and interest in the workshop topics. The committee is expected to finalize the selection of the Egyptian participants by March 31, 2000.
US Team
The interdisciplinary nature of the proposed workshop is reflected in the choice of the participants. They are researchers from various disciplines and represent academia, and government laboratories.
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