C8. Commission on Semiconductors

Report on Activities of C8 Commission of IUPAP in year ending October 2004

The most important event occurring under the auspices of the C8 Commission (Semiconductor Physics) was the 27th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors (ICPS), held in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, July 26-30, 2004.

This is the principal conference in the Physics of Semiconductors, and is held every two years. The Conference in Flagstaff also signalled the return of the conference to the USA after a rather long gap of 20 years (although it was held in North America in Vancouver in 1994).

The C8 commission held its biennial meeting on the Wednesday of the conference, and discussed various matters including the Flagstaff Conference and the sites for the Conference in 2006 and 2008.

C8 considered that the Flagstaff Conference was very successful. It was well attended (~1000 people), and was held in a very beautiful location conducive to a scientific meeting in relaxed surroundings. There were issues regarding the obtaining of visas to enter the US, but due to the efforts of the APS and other US bodies the numbers were greatly reduced at the time of the conference. To the best of our knowledge two visa applications were refused, (as reported separately by Judy Franz). 15 other people were not able to attend due to visa issues, at least half of whom commenced the visa process late. Overall we regard the visa situation as having been dealt with in the best possible way by the ICPS organisers and APS, with a satisfactory outcome obtained from the point of view of the conference. In the light of the outcome for ICPS, C8 will be recommending a conference in the USA for support in 2005.

The other main issues discussed by C8 were the location of the ICPS Conferences in 2006 and 2008. A very satisfactory presentation was made by Vienna, the provisional site of the conference in 2006, with the result that Vienna was confirmed as the location of ICPS in 2006.

Three bids were made for ICPS in 2008, from Korea, Russia and Brazil. All bids were strong, leaving C8 with a difficult choice. After long deliberation the Conference was awarded provisionally to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, to be confirmed if a satisfactory presentation of plans is made at ICPS28 in Vienna. Detailed written feedback on their respective bids was made to all three locations. It is hoped that this feedback will prove useful to Russia and Korea should they choose to bid again.
The other important issue considered by C8 both by email and at Flagstaff was the choice of conferences for sponsorship in 2005. To quote from our email to Bob Barber:

"From the five applications received the Commission recommends with the highest priority for support, on an equal basis, the following two category B conferences:

• 12th International Conference on Modulated Semiconductor Structures, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. 2005/07/10-07/15, Evelyn Hu
• 12th International Conference on II-VI Compounds, Warsaw University, Poland. 2005/09/12-09/16, Jacek Kossut

These are both likely to be excellent conferences, on subjects central to the field of semiconductor physics. Conference a) is the main conference on semiconductor physics, materials and devices in odd calendar years, and receives our strong support. Conference b) is equally important in the more specialized but growing field of II-VI semiconductors, where new applications in spintronics and light emitters have given great importance to the subject. It also receives our strong support.
The Commission also recommends, if funds are available, support for the Conference, 21st international conference on amorphous and nanocrystalline semiconductors, Lisbon, Portugal. 2005/09/04 09/09, Rodrigo Ferrão de Paiva Martins"

We trust that the IUPAP Council and Commission Chairs Meeting will take these recommendations of C8 fully into account in its deliberations in Mumbai. We wish to state our regrets that C8 is not represented in person in Mumbai but due to a combination of differing circumstances neither the Chair nor Secretary were able to attend. Given the relatively short notice, none of the Commission members was able to change his/her plans in time to attend the meeting.

M S Skolnick, L Vina
5 October 2004