October 11, 2011 - Heading to the AVS Symposium later this month (Oct. 30-Nov. 4) in Nashville, TN? It's a very broad event covering fundamental materials science, materials applications, manufacturing. We've scanned the program to pick out some of the sessions that might be of interest to our audience.

A few fast facts about the AVS 58th International Symposium & Exhibition:

~140 oral sessions, >1300 talks, >250 invited speakers, two evenings of poster presentations, 3000 attendees, >200 companies in the equipment expo.

- Thirteen focus topics, many are directly targeted at semiconductor manufacturing (e.g. nanomanufacturing, transparent conductors, printable electronics, electron transport, graphene), and some are further afield (biofabrication, marine biofouling, neutron scattering, tribology).

- Twelve tracks in the technical program with diverse yet complementary topics.

- A handful of special tutorials and workshops on energy storage, surface analysis, biomaterial interfaces, surface treatments for accelerators, and surface sciences.

- Thom Mason, director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, giving the plenary lecture on "Scientific discovery and innovation for the energy challenge."

- Short courses on vacuum technology and equipment, Materials and interfaced characterization (e.g. XPS, AES, FIB, SIMS), energy storage, and materials processing (ALD, sputtering, PV solar cells).

- The 31st annual AVS 5K, "the oldest professional society run in the world"

- An "art zone" showcasing images with aesthetic qualities rivaling their scientific origins.

Here are some of the presentations in the technical program that caught our eye (with an emphasis on invited talks):

Nanomanufacturing: Challenges in nanomanufacturing (both technical and strategic); roll-to-roll atomic-layer deposition; sub-30nm material and tool design; memristors; metrology and environmental concerns

Lithography: A hard mask process for bit-patterned media; self-assembling block copolymers to augment and enhance current lithographic process in manufacturing (results, the presenters say, include improved line-edge and line-width roughness and resolution enhancement by factors of two to four); measured backscattered electron profile for OPC using a negative e-beam resist; Fabricating three non-planar multi-gate devices from SOI substrates (FinFET, trigate, and a gate-all-around nanowire transistor), with 14nm/10nm fabricated prototypes

MEMS and NEMS: Scallop-free TSV etching for 3D LSI; deep silicon etching with STiGer process; alternative passivation chemistries for TSVs; wafer-scale hermetic packaging for MEMS; Plasma etch challenges (profile control, feature level uniformity, plasma microdamage); a dry etching process for phase-change memory; selective etch processes for magnetic materials (Ni, Co, Ta)

High-k dielectrics (two parts): High mobility channel materials beyond Si; bilayer high-k gate stacks on Ge and InGaAs; post-deposition anneal on InP MOS capacitors; surface roughness effect on electron mobility in InGaAs surface-channel MOSFETS; III-V and Ge MOS/MOSFETS beyond Si CMOS

Memory (nonvolatile and ultradense): Oxides for spintronics; charge-trap memories and 3D approaches; phase-change memory advances; ALD/PEALD CMOS-compatible oxides for RRAM; resistive switching in hafnium-oxide RRAM; embedded HfO2-based cells for RRAM; Process characterization for PCM and ST-MRAM

Nanowires/nanoparticles assembly and devices: ZnO nanowires with two-gate electrode; growth of 3D III-nitride heterostructures; III-V nanowire MOSFETs; Quantum dot display efficiency; Deterministic nanowire assembly for Si CMOS

Graphene: Graphene growth on Ni (111), Au (111), Cu(111), and SiC; graphene p-n junction device fabrication and characterization; large-scale graphene; metallic nanowire-graphene hybrid nanostructures; graphene/semiconductor junctions; graphene-line defects; graphene surface properties; graphene optoelectronics; magnetic impurities; graphene atomic membranes ("patchwork quilts to atomic drums"); chemically modified graphene synthesis/characterization;

Transparent/printable electronics (two parts): Materials modeling for transparent conducting oxides; hybrid organic/inorganic materials and devices; ZnO-based Schottky diodes; amorphous oxide thin-film transistors

Vacuum: Measurement and calibrations; gas permeation of seals; vacuum system designs and modeling