What is a supermaterial?
On rare occasions, the coining of a new term brings new ideas to a field by virtue of a shift in viewpoint. A recent example is complexity, which collected together, from a core of deep results in mathematics and hydrodynamics, a clan of fields whose kinship had been revealed by the new term itself. More often such appellations merely follow fashionable trends. So it took courage on the part of the founders of SUPERMAT to promote their vision. Marcel Ausloos (Universite de Liege, Belgium) and Gilbert Vacquier (Universite de Marseille, France) have shown us a way to resonate as a new chord in materials science. As the first conference on supermaterials, SUPERMAT and its companion SMART 99 have begun to reveal new branches of research from the established pathways explored in superconductivity. At the conclusion of SUPERMAT in Giens, France, the participants were as energized by the exciting science that had been covered during the week as they were impressed by the French food, wine, scenery and hospitality. If the definition of a supermaterial is not obvious now-after the conference-it was certainly not obvious before it. Nevertheless, the conferees were drawn inexorably together by the conference theme. Perhaps it is not appropriate to try to understand this self organization, which surely is even more complex than the self organization of electrons in a high temperature superconductor, the theory for which still eludes us after 13 years! A clue to the working definition of a supermaterial can be derived empirically from the topics that were discussed at SUPERMAT and SMART 99. In addition to superconductors, they heard about magnetic effects of many kinds, including giant and even colossal ones that presumably trump super ones, organic conductors, photoconductors, and even four-hundred-year-old Japanese ceramics. Topics discussed were synthesis, processing, characterization and theory, and applications.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 750039
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-99-2944C; TRN: AH200006%%68
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Conference on Supermaterials, Hyeres (FR), 09/20/1999--09/27/1999; Other Information: PBD: 9 Nov 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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