Easy-to-search, high-tech platform ensuring a progressive atmosphere for the exchange of knowledge and ideas.

The proceedings of 18 Cancun symposia (B1, B2, F2, F3, H6, P1, P3, P6, P7, Q3, Q7, Q1, Q2, Q5, Q6, Q8, Q9, and Q10) from the 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meeting will be published in ECS Transactions (ECST) in late September, just before the meeting in Cancun.

Make sure to order your copies now with your early-bird registration!

Check out previous proceedings in the meantime.

Workshop on Defects in Wide Band Gap Semiconductors
September 23, 2014
University of Maryland, College Park

Call for abstracts.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Abstracts accepted in the following categories:

GALLIUM NITRIDE AND SILICON CARBIDE AND RELATED COMPOUNDS

• Origin of defects in wide band-gap semiconductors
• Extended defects in wide band-gap semiconductors
• Defect reduction strategies
• Atomic level control of material growth
• Growth optimization and growth yield
• Defect dynamics in extreme environments

WIDE BANDGAP POWER DEVICES

• Defect-device performance-reliability correlations
• Defect-manufacturing yield correlations
• Role of defects in wide bandgap power electronics
• Defect modeling and defect-device performance models
• Defect characterization, in-situ and in real time
• Advanced defect characterization in both ground and excited states
• Defect modeling in ground and excited states
• Manufacturing yield and cost reduction strategies

Instructions and submission template.

DEADLINE JULY 28

Easy-to-search, high-tech platform ensuring a progressive atmosphere for the exchange of knowledge and ideas.

As of today, 205 Open Access papers have been submitted to ECS journals of which 87 were published to the ECS Digital Library. Here are the three latest:

• Effect of Relative Humidity on Corrosion of Steel under Sea Salt Aerosol Proxies I. NaCl – This paper is the first of two that examine the relationship between relative humidity, the hygroscopic behavior of sea salt aerosol proxies, and the atmospheric corrosion of mild steel contaminated with them.
• Effect of Relative Humidity on Corrosion of Steel under Sea Salt Aerosol Proxies II. MgCl2, Artificial Seawater – This paper is the second of two that examines between the hygroscopic behavior of sea salt aerosol proxies and the atmospheric corrosion of mild steel contaminated with them.
• Corrosion Inhibition of Zinc by Aqueous Vanadate Species – This study presents a characterization of the degree and mechanism of corrosion inhibition of Zn by vanadate inhibitors.

Here’s our latest Call for Papers:

Atomic Layer Etch (ALEt) and Atomic Layer Clean (ALC) are emerging as enabling technologies for sub 10nm technology nodes. At these scales performance will be extremely sensitive to process variation.

Atomic layer processes are the most promising path to deliver the precision needed. However, many areas of ALEt and ALC are in need of improved fundamental understanding and process development. This focus issue will cover state-of-the-art efforts that address a variety of approaches to ALE and ALC.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Surface reaction chemistry and its impact on selectivity
• Plasma ion energy distribution and control methods
• Novel plasma sources and potential application to ALEt & ALC
• Innovative approaches to atomic layer material removal
• Novel device applications of ALEt & ALC
• Process chamber design considerations
• Advanced delivery of chemicals to processing chambers
• Metrology and control of ALEt & ALC
• Device performance impact
• Synthesis of new chemistries for ALEt & ALC application
• Damage free surface defect removal
• Process and discharge modeling

FIND OUT MORE!

Deadline for submission of manuscripts | December 17, 2014

What is clear is that an important part of the future is the increasing adoption of Open Access.

This piece, by ECS Executive Director, Roque Calvo, appeared in Interface, Spring 2014 issue. This is the heart of where we are headed as an organization. (The new Interface is out soon. Watch your mailboxes. Find out how to subscribe to our journals.)

Since the dawn of modern science, the key to scientific advancement has been the exchange of knowledge in publications, meetings, and through other collaborations; and in the past decade we have experienced a significant change in the way this scientific exchange occurs. Digital information and the Internet have dramatically improved our ability to disseminate science on a worldwide scale and should lead to global advances at a pace never considered before. But there are obstacles because these technological advancements in the digital age have come at a high cost to scholarly publishing; not for producing scientific content but for the cost of dissemination incurred by users of the research and their institutions.

(more…)

SAGE Publications retracts 60 papers.

Peer review of our journals is one of the things we are most proud of here at The Electrochemical Society. Even as we move to Open Access for our publications, our peer review process is going to remain as rigorous as ever. Amazing the lengths people will go to beat the system though. This from RetractionWatch.com:

SAGE Publishers is retracting 60 articles from the Journal of Vibration and Control after an investigation revealed a “peer review and citation ring” involving a professor in Taiwan.

Here’s another piece I found interesting background reading, it’s about a year old, about how easy it is to get fake papers published because of the lack of good peer review.

PS: If you want to publish in a nice, no drama atmosphere, think of ECS.