| Posted: August 20, 2008 |
Indonesian nanotechnology researchers inspired by physics conference |
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(Nanowerk News) Indonesian researchers can access the latest research in particle physics from world-class scientists gathering for the 4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, which opened Tuesday.
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Around 100 participants, including 88 top scientists from prominent universities in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world, are taking part in the five-day conference hosted by the University of Indonesia at its campus in Depok, West Java, 20 kilometers south of Jakarta.
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Among the participants are representatives of the United States' Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Japan's Tokyo Institute of Science and Kyoto University, China's Nanjing University, Korea's Aerospace University, Malaysia's University of Malaya and the University of Indonesia.
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Scientists from European countries are also attending, including some from Germany's University of Bonn, the Netherlands' University of Groningen and the United Kingdom's University of Glasgow.
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In total, 24 countries are participating in the conference, Scientists will be sharing the latest research on the development of theoretical predictions and experiments in the few-body system, a basic branch in physics which deals with the interaction between two or more particles.
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Indonesia's State Minister for Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman said in his opening speech advances in the knowledge of few-body problems would be very helpful in the development of nanotechnology, which has been increasingly popular globally.
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Nanotechnology is an applied science which aims to manipulate matter on an atomic and molecular scale, generally 100 nanometers in length or smaller, and develop materials or devices for that scale. Examples include the manufacture of polymers based on their molecular structure and the design of computer microchip layouts based on surface science.
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Kusmayanto said Indonesia was currently still in the microelectronics phase, and was aiming to get to the nanoelectronics phase. He said the international conference was therefore highly relevant for the country.
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"These world-class scientists will be sharing their recent research results here, which our students and lecturers can benefit from. This face-to-face meeting enables us to get the information faster than waiting for their work to be published, which may take two or three more years," he said.
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Cochair of the conference's steering committee, Terry Mart, said the conference could help Indonesia demonstrate to foreign scientists that "our scientists do exist".
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