Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

The kinetic pathways of materials during synthesis ultimately determine their properties and performance. Due to the advent of in situ experimental probes — from dynamic TEM to high energy diffraction microscopy to 4D X-ray tomography — researchers now have the unique opportunity to uncover the fundamental mechanisms that govern the motion of interfaces under various external stimuli. These include thermal gradients, magnetic fields, and electric currents. To this end, in situ studies typically require complex sample environments and also the algorithms and hardware for processing the multidimensional datasets obtained. The results can be used to validate theories of crystallization and self-assembly; they can also serve as input for multi-scale simulations, which can then be compared with the corresponding experiments.

The focus of this symposium is to bring together experts in technique development and applications to assess the current state-of-the-art in probing the synthesis of materials over a broad range of length and time scales. Topics will include laboratory-scale and synchrotron‑based studies of particle nucleation; dendrite growth and other phase transformations; defect formation and propagation; grain growth; nanowire assembly; and spinodal decomposition. The application space of the as‑synthesized structures will cover electromagnetic metamaterials to additively manufactured lightweight components. Particular emphasis will be given to studies that integrate multiple in situ experimental techniques and/or link the in situ experiments with simulations and theories, in an effort to achieve a unified description of the interfacial dynamics underlying materials synthesis.

Topics will include:

• Laboratory- and synchrotron-based studies
• In situ experiments with X-rays, electrons, and neutrons
• Magnetic and electric field assisted crystallization
• Kinetics of nucleation, growth, and coarsening
• Combined experimental and computational studies
• Self-assembly of nanostructured materials
• Materials synthesized far from equilibrium

Invited Speakers:

• Robert Sinclair (Stanford University, USA)
• Yu Han (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia)
• Madeline Dukes (Protochips Inc., USA)
• Dongsheng Li (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA)
• Katayun Barmak (Columbia University, USA)
• Maike Becker (German Aerospace Center, Germany)
• Sabine Bottin-Rousseau (Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, France)
• Kozo Fujiwara (Tohoku University, Japan)
• Jianrong Gao (Northeastern University, China)
• Patrick Grant (University of Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Jean-Christophe Harmand (Universite Paris-Saclay, France)
• Ragnvald Mathiesen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)
• Joseph McKeown (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA)
• Henri Nguyen-Thi (Institut Matériaux Microélectronique Nanosciences de Provence, France)
• Frances Ross (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• Tao Sun (Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
• Robert Suter (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
• Peter Voorhees (Northwestern University, USA)

Symposium Organizers