2nd International Workshop on the Frontiers of Nanomechanical Systems (FNS/2019)

California Institute Of Technology, Pasadena CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Second International Workshop on the Frontiers of Nanomechanical Systems (FNS/2019) will be held in Palm Springs, California, 10 to 14 February 2019. This workshop will serve to bring together the international research community engaged in studying nanomechanical systems and is intended to promote exchange of ideas, approaches, and techniques. This should advance collaborative, cross-disciplinary research on nanomechanics and further accelerate the progress in the field, both in terms of fundamental studies and applications. Graduate students and research associates are especially welcome at the conference. To attract them, information about the conference was broadly disseminated, and colleagues were asked to encourage their students and postdocs to attend. There are already 32 graduate students participating in the workshop, which is roughly one-third of the entire participant cohort. The participants are limited to 110 scientists to ensure lively interaction and full participation throughout. The remaining two-thirds of the participants are roughly divided equally between postdocs and senior scientists (either professorial faculty, or professional scientific researchers). The scholarships expected from this grant are intended to be provided to prospective students and postdocs. This should significantly increase and enhance the participation of students and postdocs at the workshop. Steps have been taken to encourage members of the underrepresented groups to attend as well. A measure of success of this effort is that, along with female invited speakers, a female graduate student has been chosen to give an oral contributed talk, which is an exceptional opportunity for a student given the level of the conference. The workshop FNS/2019 comes from the challenges that are posed by nanomechanical systems. They include, but are not limited to, (i) the occurrence of comparatively strong quantum and classical fluctuations and (ii) the vibration nonlinearity. Along with the invariably present thermal fluctuations, NEMS are subject to nonequilibrium fluctuations. Characterizing and understanding these fluctuations, as well as revealing their consequences is complicated and requires developing new techniques. At the same time, because of the small system size, vibrations with even comparatively small amplitudes become nonlinear, with the nonlinearity often coming into play already for thermal fluctuations. Addressing these challenges requires concerted international effort. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.