Preface for Procedings of The 7th International Symposium on Atomic Level Characterization for New Materials and Devices (ALC’09)

The 7th International Symposium on “Atomic Level Characterization for New Materials and Devices (ALC'09)” was held under the auspices of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the 141st Committee on Microbeam Analysis between December 6—11, 2009 in Maui, Hawaii, USA. The 141st Committee, which is one of 60 industry cooperative research committees organized by the JSPS, was established in September 1974 to meet the growing demands of microbeam analysts, users and scientists for further education, innovation and mutual cooperation among industries, governmental institutes and universities. This committee has several goals: developing new methodologies, technologies and microanalysis instrumentation; promoting widely the practical application of these up-to-date 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, the fifth in the Big Island, Hawaii 2005, and the sixth in Kanazawa, 2007.

The 7th International Symposium (ALC’09) was aimed and establishing the atomic level characterization as the key technology for nanotechnology 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 material science, geology, biology and medical science.

This symposium contains 23 scientific sessions with 247 oral and poster presentations, including 3 plenary lectures, 5 tutorial lectures, 39 invited papers and 9 papers of student-award winners. The exhibition and 3 sponsored sessions are also held by companies, showing the most advanced products and equipments relating with the microbeam analysis and characterization at nanometer scale.

We thank all the participants of 270 including 46 accompanying persons from 19 countries and the speakers who made the symposium a great success. Especially, it is a great pleasure for us to invite Professor M. Kobayashi, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2008 as special lecturer in a plenary session. We celebrated two distinguished scientists who were awarded 141st committee Award: It is honor to give our best award to Professor G.A. Somorjai and Professor H. Ibach.

December 2009

Chuhei Oshima

Chair of Organizing Committee

Waseda University