C8. Commission on Semiconductors

2004 International Conference on the Physics and Chemistry of Quantum Dots (QD2004)
Banff, Canada
May 1- 13, 2004

Organizing Committee:
D. G. Austing
P. Hawrylak
J. Lefebvre
H.C. Liu
D. J. Lockwood
S. Raymond
M. G. Robitaille – Conference Manager
A.S. Sachrajda
R. Williams
[Women: 1]

Program Committee:
CO-CHAIR: A. Sachrajda (NRS, Canada)
CO-CHAIR: A. Efros (NRL, USA)
P. Alivisatos (UC Berkeley, USA)
Y. Arakawa (University of Tokyo, Japan)
M. Bayer (University of Dortmund, Germany)
J- M. Gerard (CEA, France)
P. Petroff (UCSB, USA)
L. Samuelson (University of Lund, Sweden)
M. Skolnick (University of Sheffield, UK)
S. Tarucha (University of Tokyo, Japan)
R. Westervelt (Harvard University , USA)
A. Zrenner (University of Paderborn, Germany)
[Women: 0]

Advisory Committee:
G. Abstreiter (Walter Schottky Institute, Germany)
D. Awschalom (UCSB, USA)
T. Basche (University of Mainz, Germany)
M. Bawendi (MIT, USA)
D. Bimberg (TU Berlin, Germany)
L. Eaves (University of Nottingham, UK)
K. Ensslin (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
A. Forchel (University of Wurzburg, Germany)
J. Furdyna (University of Notre Dame, USA)
D. Gammon (NRL, USA)
D. Gershoni (Technion, Israel)
H. Guo (Mcgill University, Canada)
R. Haug (University of Hanover, Germany)
Y. Hirayama (NTT, Japan)
J. Kossut (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland)
J. Kotthaus (Ludwig Maximilian University, Germany)
L. Kouwenhoven (TU Delft, The Netherlands)
E. Molinari (University of Modena, Italy)
F. Peeters (University of Antwerp, Belgium)
H. Sakaki (University of Tokyo, Japan)
C. Tejedor (University of Madrid, Spain)
S. Ulloa (Ohio University, USA)
U. Woggon (University of Dortmund, Germany)
[Woman: 2]

General:
The conference was organized by the above team from the Institute of Microstructural Sciences of the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada in Ottawa and NRC conference services. The conference site was Banff Center, Banff west of Calgary. The conference complied with all IUPAP requirements. There were over 200 participants [Women: 14] from around the world. There were 13 invited talks [Women: 0], 42 contributed talks [Women: 1], and about 130 poster presentations. The following topics were represented:

1. Fabrication and characterization of semiconductor quantum dots and nano-crystals (44),
2. Optical properties of quantum dots, nano-crystals and related nano-structures (80),
3. Transport properties of quantum dots (25),
4. Theory of electronic, optical and many-body effects in quantum dots (39),
5. Device applications such as lasers, memories, photo-detectors and amplifiers (9),
6. Molecular quantum dots and hybrid quantum dot-polymer/ferromagnet/superconductor structures (11),
7. Exploratory applications: nano-bio-spintronics, quantum information processing (13).

The numbers in ( ) indicate the number of submitted abstracts for each topic [total 221].

Abstract books are available from Guy Austing (guy. austing@nrc.ca) on request.

     The conference web-site is still open (htt:/www.qd2004.com), and the entire scientific program can be found at: http://www.qd2004.com/program/index.shtml.

     The conference was an excellent forum, for young scientists in particular, and a good platform to showcase quantum dot activities around the word.

     Excluding a few participants who registered late on-site, the following is the breakdown of participant numbers by country:
1. USA: 42
2. Germany: 32
3. Japan: 25
4. Canada: 24 (HOST)
5. UK: 15
6. South Korea: 12
7. France: 11
8. Finland: 6
9. Switzerland: 5
10. Belgium, Israel, The Netherlands: 4 each
11. Russia, Sweden, Taiwan: 3 each
12. Austria, Italy, Norway, Tunisia: 2 each
13. Brazil, Cuba, Iran, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Spain: 1 each
TOTAL: 210 (participants who registered or said they would register on-site)

     The next Quantum Dots conference will be in Grenoble, France 2006 (co-chair Prof Henri Mariette: henri.mariette@cea,ca).

IUPAP support:

     We would liket to thank IUPAP for their very generous sponsorship ($6 K US).

We would like to make a few comments:

1. When we applied for IUPAP money in January 2003 the exchange rate was about $1.60 US to $1 CAN and we budgeted for a full registration fee of just less than $400 US. By the time we had received notification of IUPAP funding (fall 2003), the exchange rate had changed dramatically to about $1.30 US TO $1 CAN (against us). This caused us much worry. We did readjust the budge to ensure the full registration was still below $400 US, but had we not done better than expected with other sources of income, and indeed with the better than planned number of participants who actually attended, we might have struggled with the $400 US cap. Of course IUPAP is not responsible for exchange rate fluctuations, and now IUPAP is providing financial support in EURO with will hopefully help the organizing committees of future conferences if it is more stable.
   
   
2. One IUPAP condition, which did worry us somewhat, is the right of IUPAP to withdraw its support over problems for participants not able to receive visas. In today’s global climate, no organizing committee of any international conference is able to guarantee “no-problems” with visas. We did put as much information as we could on the QD2004 web-site regarding visas SIX months in advance of the conference, and urged those requiring visas to start the process as soon as possible. In reality, apart from a few diligent people, we received most requests for letters for visa after acceptance of abstracts had been posted, i.e. 2 to 3 months prior to the conference, and indeed we still received such requests almost right up to the conference. In the event, we received 27 requests for letters for visas and all such letters were sent by post (if the request was sufficiently early) and FAX. It seems Canadian Embassies were able to issues visas fairly quickly and we received no complaints of any serious problems with visas.
   
   
3. In the spirit of IUPAP’s aims, the conference was attended by people from many countries-not just the major counties. Additionally, the conference was well attended by students and young scientists. As well as full registrations ($525 CAN) we had student registration ($350 CAN). We received 26 requests for financial support. With the funds available to us, not just IUPAP support, we were able to offer some support to ALL those requesting support. For all but two people, the support we could offer was sufficient to allow them to attend the conference (totaling almost $15K CAN). In most cases we just waived registration. Either for scientists from (not just developing) countries where funding for conferences is difficult, or for young scientists giving oral presentation we sometimes offered extra support towards accommodation cost ($360 CAN). In one case we offered support for travel.