This summer Professor Allain presented in Toledo, Spain the invited talk “Directed-irradiation synthesis: manipulating matter in nanoscale self-organized systems during particle-surface interactions” in the Heavy Particle Session at ICPEAC 2015, the XXIX International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions. ICPEAC is a major biennial international meeting of physicists working in the broad area of collisions involving photons, electrons, ions, atoms, molecules, clusters, surfaces, and exotic particles.

Michael Lively was awarded the Graduate Research Fellowship, a prestigious, nationally competitive fellowship offered by the National Science Foundation in 2014. Mike’s research at RSSEL focuses on computer modeling for directing ion beams to make nano-patterns on material surfaces such as silicon, used by the semi conductor industry primarily for computer chips. The department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering (NPRE) at Illinois has highlighted his accomplishments in a recent article published online.

Prof. Allain has been selected as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Colombia and awarded the 2015-2016 Fulbright – Colciencias Innovation and Technology Award through a partnership between the United States Commission for Educational Exchange and the Colombian Government’s Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. Professor Allain will conduct research with collaborators from the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin aimed at developing functional nanomaterials for biotechnology and energy applications through multiple short-term visits to this country.

Prof. J.P. Allain chairs the 26th IEEE Symposium On Fusion Engineering – SOFE 2015, which will take place from May 31 – June 4, 2015 in Austin, Texas. The meeting will be co-located with the 20th IEEE Pulsed Power Conference – PPC 2015 at the Hilton Austin Hotel. Registration information is available online. Abstract submission deadline is January 31, 2015.

A short course on Fundamentals of Plasma Material Interactions and Plasma Edge Physics in Magnetic Fusion will be offered on May 31, 2015.

The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald has gifted a multimillion dollar plasma/fusion advanced physics testing facility to the University of Illinois as a result of the relationship the NPRE – Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering’s plasma/fusion group has developed with the German institute. The HIDRA (Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications) facility will boost the ability to perform fusion-relevant experiments on plasma-materials interactions, liquid metals, plasma nano-synthesis, fusion transport models, and materials processing.

The facility began arriving on campus in shipments this week, trucks bringing boxes of parts of the device – disassembled in Greifswald, Germany over the summer. Rebuilding will begin immediately upon arrival and operations are expected to begin by summer 2015.

Prof. Allain will be giving an invited talk at the American Vacuum Society 61^st International Symposium and Exhibition in Baltimore, Maryland, November 11, 2014.  The talk will head off the Plasma-Material Interactions I session and is titled: “Directed Irradiation Synthesis: Manipulating Matter in Nanoscale Self-Organized Systems”. During the symposium Zak Koyn will be presenting his work on: “Oxidation and nanopatterning of thin metal films on flexible substrates via oxygen directed irradiation synthesis”.

Prof. Allain recently visited Universidad de Los Andes (Uniandes) in Bogota, Colombia invited by the Colombian National Council of Accreditation – CNA (Consejo Nacional de Acreditación) as the international peer reviewer for the institutional re-accreditation process of this prestigious university, ranked 5th best in Latin America by the QS University rankings.  Prof. Allain also leads several research collaborations with Uniandes in the area of tissue engineering.

Brandon Holybee has been invited to participate and give an invited talk at the 22nd International Conference on Ion-Surface Interactions ISI-2015 to be held in Moscow from 20 to 24 August 2015. ISI-2015 will be the next one in a series of traditional biennial meetings devoted to problems of physics of atomic collisions with solids and related topics.

Brandon will be giving the talk titled: Investigating the chemical and structural evolution of III-V semiconductors under pre-pattern formation ion irradiation processes.