Briber Presents at ACNS Plenary Session

MSE Professor and Chair Robert M. Briber delivered a plenary lecture at the 2008 American Conference on Neutron Scattering (ACNS) in Santa Fe, N.M. The conference was organized by the Neutron Scattering Society of America with assistance from the Materials Research Society, sponsored by the Neutron Scattering Society of America, and hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Briber's lecture, titled "Soft Matter and Neutron Scattering," provided an overview of the past, present and future of the field of soft matter and neutron scattering. Key accomplishments in the field's past included a discussion of chain conformation in the melt and phase transitions and criticality of block copolymers and thin films; development of phase diagrams and the structure of block copolymer melts and solutions; and the use of neuron reflectivity studies in understanding the structure of block copolymer thin films. Briber described recent and current work in nucleation in polymer blends, rotational SANS of complex structures (including self assembly of block copolymers on nanoparticles), dynamics of biomolecules (including the role of hydration), and block copolymer templating. Finally, he offered his opinions and insight about future research directions, which he said, should receive a boost thanks to a surge of new instrumentation now or soon to be available at many research facilities. He described several opportunities for future soft matter research including smaller sample volumes and dilute solutions, kinetics, dynamics at longer time scales, and hybrid hard/soft materials.

The purpose of the biennial ACNS conference is to showcase the best current research in neutron science in a variety of fields, including "soft and hard condensed matter, liquids, biology, magnetism, engineering materials, chemical spectroscopy, crystal structure, fundamental physics, and developments in neutron instrumentation."

Learn More:

News Article about the conference on the "MRS Meeting Scene" website »
About Professor Briber »
Visit the ACNS 2008 web site »

Published May 15, 2008