Report on 6th U.S.–Japan Joint Seminar on Nanoscale Transport Phenomena—Science and Engineering

Abstract

The objective of this U.S.–Japan joint seminar series is to provide a cross-disciplinary and international forum for discussing and identifying outstanding science and technology issues in the area of nanoscale thermophysics and energy conversion and to foster collaboration among researchers in these areas. The first of this seminar series, championed by the late Professors Chang-Lin Tien and Kunio Hijikata, was held in Kanazawa, Japan, in June of 1993. Subsequent meetings have been held every three years, alternating venues between the United States and Japan. The Sixth U.S.–Japan Joint Seminar on Nanoscale Transport Phenomena—Science and Engineering was held in Boston, Massachusetts, July 13–16, 2008, and was organized by Professors Gang Chen from MIT, Fushinobu Kazuyoshi from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Shigeo Maruyama from Tokyo University, and Pamela Norris from University of Virginia. Nearly 100 scientists participated in the seminar. (The agenda of the seminar is attached at the end at this report[14].) The seminar included keynote sessions and invited sessions, as well as a dedicated poster session of selected presentations from an open call for papers. All papers presented in the regular sessions, the invited sessions, were upon invitation by the organizers. Invited sessions used a mixed form of communication: each speaker gave a 5-minute summary of his work followed by a 30-minute poster session of just the papers summarized orally, and then these speakers came back to the podium, serving as panelists to answer questions regarding their papers and session themes. This format offered good opportunities for the presenters to discuss their work with the participants. Reports for each session were summarized by session chairs. Following is a brief summary of the sessions.