History and Scope of PEC

The 80th Physical Electronics Conference (PEC), hosted by the Advanced Light Source and Molecular Foundry of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, follows in the tradition of annual PEC meetings held on university campuses and research labs in North America. This topical conference provides a yearly forum for the dissemination and discussion of novel and fundamental theoretical and experimental research in the physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering of surfaces and interfaces. It includes the prestigious Nottingham Prize competition for best presentation based on doctoral research.

In its 80th year, the meeting has remained centered in its basis of fundamental science at material interfaces even as materials synthesis and characterization techniques have evolved. Central themes now include the interfaces of metals, semiconductors, ionic conductors, dielectrics, insulators, fluids, porous materials, and the wealth of biomaterials. Physicists, chemists, and engineers, with interests in these fields, come together to present and discuss experimental and theoretical research on exposed (gas-solid or gas-liquid) surfaces, or buried (liquid-solid and solid-solid) interfaces.

Representative topics include (but are not limited to) electronic, chemical, magnetic, and structural properties of interfaces; energetics, kinetics, and dynamics of physical and chemical transformations at surfaces; formation, assembly, structural and electronic properties, and modeling of nanoscale surface architectures; effects of electron correlation at surfaces and in topological insulators; interfacial interactions of biological materials; impacts of interface chirality; mechanisms of film growth and interface evolution; and transfer of energy, electrons, or ions across materials interfaces. New methods/techniques for interrogation of interfaces, novel devices or sensors, and new applications for structurally and chemically tailored interfaces also fall within the scope of this meeting.