Samara Center for Theoretical Materials Science has held the International workshop “Applications of topological methods in materials science”.Two-day workshop was dedicated to discussion of recent scientific developments in the field of materials science associated with the topological approach, and preparation of the participants to the International scientific school “Combined Topological and DFT Methods for Prediction of New Materials II” being followed the workshop.
The first day of the workshop demonstrated how far the topological approach proliferated in the world science. Prof. Jean-Guillaume Eon from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) opened the lecture session with the report on topological features in crystal structures. Dr. Peter Boyd from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland) told the participants about novel methods for constructing nano porous materials. Dr. Matthew Addicoat, a representative of the University of Leipzig (Germany), showed how to implement computational prediction of MOF structures from the entire periodic table using DFT methods.
Within afternoon session Dr. Felipe Gándara (Materials Science Institute of Madrid, Spain), Dr. Jian Lu (Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), Dr. George Kostakis (University of Sussex, UK), Dr. Ruggero Gabbrielli (Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale Nullo Baldini, Ravenna, Italy), Dawid Bednarski (University of Hamburg, Germany) presented more practice-oriented reports.
The second day program of the workshop included reports of the researchers of SCTMS Laboratory of Crystal Chemistry and Crystal Design and the Laboratory of Mathematical Modeling of Materials as well as the reports of guest participants. Thus, Kumar Gulshan from the University of Delhi (India) reported on coordination-driven frameworks and Muhammad Ali Butt from Samara National Research University (Samara, Russia) made a presentation on growth of RTP crystals.
“It’s our first experience of organizing scientific workshop preliminary to the school – commented Prof. Vladislav Blatov, the director of SCTMS. - We have organized more than ten scientific schools that were mostly training programs. Now we’ve held scientific mini-conference as the time has come to begin a scientific discussion”. In recent decade, topological methods gained momentum and widespread application in many laboratories in different countries, and developments of Samara school of materials science played an essential role among them. “It’s important that new methods, similar and alternative to ours, develop, - Vladislav Blatov continued, - that is interesting to SCTMS team and the school participants in exploring TOPOS software package. It gives us a unique opportunity to learn what is going on in the world science except Samara scientific school. The very beginning of the workshop shows that new methods successfully develop. Thus, we will be able to cooperate with new researchers and advance this field of science”.
“I’m glad that we’ve managed to gather together so many people from around the world interested in science, who have never met before, - says Prof. Davide Proserpio, the scientific advisor of SCTMS. – It is a pleasure to see how the scientists, who cited each other in research papers, can discuss the scientific issues they work at. I’m happy to initiate such fruitful communication”.
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