General Information

Ancient LisbonInstituto Superior TécnicoCongress Center


 Scope
BIANISOTROPICS 2000 will be the 8th International Conference on Electromagnetics of Complex Media. The Conference will be held at the Congress Center of  Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa.

The meeting will cover from fundamental electromagnetic theory of complex media to applications and novel devices from the microwave to the optical regimes.

The conference will comprise 6 half-day sessions on a variety of research topics concerned with theory and applications of complex (i.e., chiral, pseudochiral, anisotropic, bianisotropic, nonhomogeneous, nonlocal, nonlinear, random) media. The programme will include special talks by key speakers, oral and poster sessions with contributed papers and discussions on hot topics bringing together applied mathematicians, physicists, engineers, material scientists from Research Institutes, Universities and Industries.


Historical background
Bianisotropics 2000 will be the eighth in a series of loosely connected international conferences and workshops and concerned with all aspects of electromagnetics relating to novel materials.
Its predecessors were:


Since their inception in 1993 these conferences/workshops have proved highly successful meetings for scientists actively working in this particular area of research. They have provided a stimulating setting for the exchange of research results, the development of new directions of theoretical and experimental research and the fostering of new research collaborations. Equally importantly, they have provided a platform for vital mutual interaction between East and West in attracting scientists from the Former Soviet Union, their participation made possible through generous grants.


Scientific background, motivation and aims

 During much of the 19th century and until quite recently in this century, electromagnetics researchers focussed on either vacuum or metals or dielectric media such as crystals, powders, epoxies and plasmas. Some attention was paid to magnetic materials as well, chiefly at
low frequencies. During the 1960s, however, attention began to be sporadically focussed on general electromagnetic media. Although nonlinear dielectric media quickly became very important in optics owing to their technological significance, advances in materials sciences were very slow so that general (i.e., bianisotropic) media were considered important only by a few theorists.

This picture began to dramatically alter during the mid-1980s. Chiral media arrived on the scene, with the possibility of being technologically significant at microwave frequencies. This became possible owing to huge advances in polymer sciences: biomimetic materials as well as extremely long-chain polymers with chiral conformations make chiral media attractive for electromagneticists. The study of the optical properties of enantiomers has been boosted by the recognition of enantioselectivity by the pharmaceutical industry. The chirality of ocular media has been targeted for noninvasive monitoring of blood glucose in diabetics. More recent advances in thin film technology are yielding new forms of smart composites and functional gradient materials. Helicoidal bianisotropic mediums have been proposed and fabricated, and have given rise to the sculptured thin film concept for use in solid optics, bio-ultrasonics, transduction, microcatalysis, and many other areas.

A major new thrust area is in combining the fast electromagnetic responses of most materials with their relatively slower mechanical responses, giving rise to electromagnetically controllable smart materials for transduction and actuation. Typically, these are composites so that their electromagnetic as well as mechanical responses have desirable attributes. Moreover, they may be inhomogeneous in order to possess functional gradients.

Complex media require the attentions of scientists from a wide spectrum of disciplines: from Applied Mathematics and Physics to Electrical and Electronic Engineering, from Chemistry to Materials Science, and even Biophysics. Thus, the electromagnetics of complex media is indeed a truly multidisciplinary research area spanning the bridge from basic theoretical and experimental research at universities to industrial production of a diverse array of electrical, microwave, infrared and optical materials and devices.

All of this means that the study of electromagnetic fields in bianisotropic media is no longer merely the province of ivory-tower theorists, but a vibrant area of technological research as well with great promise for societal benefits.


Local organizers

 A. M. Barbosa  (Technical University of Lisbon) - Conference Chair
A. L. Topa (Technical University of Lisbon)
Organizing committee

 J. H. Cloete (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)
N. Engheta (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
A. Jacob (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany)
Igor Semchenko (Gomel State University, Belarus)
A. Sihvola (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland)
S. Tretyakov (St. Petersburg State Technical University, Russia)
U. B. Unrau (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany)
A. P. Vinogradov (Russian Academy of Science, Russia)
W. Weiglhofer (University of Glasgow, Great Britain)

Scientific advisory committee

 J. M. Arnold (University of Glasgow, Great Britain)
W. C. Chew (University of Illinois, USA)
H. Cory (Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)
D. L. Jaggard (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
G. Kristensson (Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden)
C. Krowne (Naval Research Laboratory, USA)
A. Lakhtakia (Pennsylvania State University, USA)
I. Lindell (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland)
F. Olyslager (University of Ghent, Belgium)
J. P. Parneix (PIOM, France)
G. Ya Slepyan (Belarus State University, Belarus)
S. Ström (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)
K. W. Whites (University of Kentucky, USA)
Schedule

 April 22, 2000: deadline for one-page abstracts
May 22, 2000: notification of acceptance
July 5, 2000: reception of final manuscripts and registration
Organization

The Conference is organized by:
Sponsors

The meeting is receiving sponsorship from:

and technical co-sponsorship from



Registration fee

 The following registration fee is to be paid in cash (PTE - Portuguese Escudos) upon arrival at the conference:

Registration Fee
Regular 32 000 PTE 160 EURO
Reduced rate - Student 16 000 PTE 80 EURO

The registration fee includes one copy of the Proceedings, lunches, refreshments and attendance at the social event. Conference Dinner extra tickets for accompanying persons, can be purchased at the Conference Desk, no later than September 27, at the unit price of 10.000 PTE. Assistance with accommodation arrangements is provided by the organizers.