Preface for Procedings of The 6th International Symposium on Atomic Level Characterization for New Materials and Devices (ALC’07)

The 6th International Symposium on ‘Atomic Level Characterization for New Materials and Devices (ALC’07)’ was held under the auspices of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS): the 141st Committee on Microbeam Analysis, during, Oct. 28—Nov. 2, 2007 in Kanazawa, Japan. The 141st Committee, which is one of 59 University-Industry cooperative research committees organized by the JSPS, was established in September 1974 to meet the growing demands of microbeam analysis users and scientists for further education, innovation and mutual cooperation among industries, public institutes and universities. This committee has several goals: developing novel methodologies, technologies and microanalysis instrumentation; promoting widely the practical application of these state of the art technologies to industry; and, in particular, encouraging scientists of the next generation in the field of microanalysis.

The series of international symposia on Atomic Level Characterization (ALC), started in 1996, the first being held in Kyoto, followed by the second in Maui, Hawaii, 1997, the third in Nara, 2001, the fourth in Kauai, Hawaii, 2003 and the fifth in the Big Island, Hawaii. The ALC symposium represents one of the most active meetings in Japan and probably in the world, to promote the microbeam analysis and characterization at the nanometer scale.

The 6th International Symposium (ALC'07) was held in Oct. 28—Nov. 2, 2007 in Kanazawa, Japan in conjunction with the 16th secondary ion mass spectrometry conference (SIMS-16). The symposium was aimed at establishing the atomic level characterization as the key technology for nano-technology which has been the focus of much research effort and development in many countries recently. The symposium featured the significant approaches towards atomic level characterization and its applications to various fields, such as the material science, art, mineralogy, geology and biology.

We thank all the 241 participants from 16 countries and the speakers who made the symposium a great success. The 37 invited and 130 contributed papers including 11 student award papers were presented in the symposium. The proceedings of the symposium are published in the special issue of Surface and Interface Analysis, e-journal of the Surface Science Society of Japan and the Activity Report of the JSPS 141st Committee. Especially e-journal of the Surface Science Society of Japan has been currently employed for our proceeding publication.

We celebrated Prof. C. Fadley who was awarded the JSPS 141st Committee Award and a new honorable member of the JSPS 141th Committee. It is very honorable to give our best award to the distinguished scientist in the word.

A special thanks to our committee members, Professor S. Suzuki, the chair of the executive Committee, and Professor C. Oshima, the chair the program committee, respectively. Thanks also Dr. H. Hibino who carried out most practical work of the program committee. Most of the publication matters concerned with this symposium have been handled by Professor J. Kawai, the chairman of publication committee, and we express deep and sincere thanks to him because the special issue would not have been possible without his devoted service. We have to sincerely thanks to Mr. R. Oiwa for his big effort to raise the fund from industries.

We also express special thanks to Dr. T. Nagatomi, Dr. M. Suzuki, Dr. H. Nakahara, Prof. T. Yasue, Dr. A. Kurokawa and Prof. T. Sakamoto for their great contribution to success of the symposium.

We also express our very sincere gratitude to Professor Y. Fujii of Kobe University, a member of the publication committee of the e-journal, for helping us at every stage of this issue.We are also deeply grateful for the program on International Symposia for University-Industry Cooperation of JSPS for funding this international symposium.

Takanori Koshikawa

Chair, JSPS-141st Committee on Microbeam Analysis and ALC’07

Osaka Electro-Communication University