Preface: phys. stat. sol. (c) 1/12

Abstract

The Second Seeheim Conference on Magnetism (SCM2004) was the second conference in the tri-annual series of this conference series on magnetism, organized under the auspices of Darmstadt University of Technology, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe and Ulm University. SCM2004 was held from 27 June to 1 July 2004. The location was the Lufthansa Training Center in Seeheim located conveniently in central Germany and easily accessible by air, train and car. The purpose of the meeting was to provide an opportunity to present and discuss recent developments in the field of magnetic nanomaterials. SCM2004 was focused on the latest developments in specific areas of magnetism (nanostructured materials, surfaces, interfaces and nanoparticles) and covered fundamental aspects of magnetism as well as applications. The most recent results were presented in the form of invited and contributed talks as well as posters. The topical areas were: – hard and soft magnetic materials – magnetic interactions – magnetization processes – spin dependent transport properties – nanostructured materials – applications. The first conference of this series was held in Seeheim in 2001. The papers from the 2001 conference were published in a regular issue of physica status solidi (a) 189, Nos. 2, 3 (2002), and since their publication they have been downloaded from the Web more than 14,000 times. This cleary demonstrates both the interest in and the need for this conference series. Our second meeting was attended by participants from 36 countries. A total number of 271 papers correlating nanostructure and magnetic properties were selected for presentation. Throughout the meeting a total of 51 talks was given; the remaining 220 papers were selected for poster presentation. The conference proceeded in an informal and very friendly atmosphere among the researchers from various parts of the world. We are grateful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe and Darmstadt University of Technology for their kind financial support. We are looking forward to welcoming again participants of SCM2004 at the Third Seeheim Conference on Magnetism, planned for 2007 in Seeheim.