NAU hosting world conference
NAU will host the 2004 International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors from July 25 - 31. The conference, to be held on the Flagstaff campus, will bring 1,200 scientists, three-quarters of them from abroad, to explore semiconductor physics, nanotechnology, quantum effects and optics.
"The really hot topic now that most people are interested in is nanotechnology and its medical, material, device, and sensing applications," said Tim Porter, professor and chair of NAU's physics and astronomy department and a member of the conference organizing committee. Porter's development of a device that can be implanted in the mouth to sense hydration levels in humans is one such example of the science of microscopic devices.
The list of attendees includes renowned scientists from academia and industry in Germany, Poland, Austria, Japan, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries.
The Southwest is a hotbed of semiconductor research, Porter said, and it was time for the United States to be a site again. The organizing committee consists of NAU's physics and astronomy department, Arizona State University, Motorola, Freescale Semiconductor, the National Institute of Standards and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
The conference has been three years in the making. "There was an amazing amount of cooperation from NAU staff," Porter said. "The du Bois Center, Catering Services, Student Services and staff from the Colleges of Arts and Letters, and Engineering and Natural Sciences were all extremely helpful."
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