International scientific school “Topological Methods in Materials Science 2017” 
20 October 2017

20171018-03The International school “Topological Methods in Materials Science” conducted on October 13-15, 2017 in Guangyang district of Lanfang, Hebei Province of China has concluded its work. The school was the first official event held in newly constructed scientific center – technopolis and business incubator TusPark of Tsinghua University.

Twenty participants including students and postgraduate students of Chinese universities attended the school. The tutors were Prof. Vladislav Blatov, Dr. Eugeny Alexandrov and Andrey Golov. The participants of the school were introduced to modern topological methods in crystal chemistry and materials science, algorithms, software, databases and expert systems and were trained to apply these instruments for various classes of crystal structures and materials in practice. They also were acquainted with the concepts of using topological methods in combination with the DFT for design of new materials and prediction of their physical properties. It is significant that except educational component, every participant of the school gained the insight into application of the software and the databases in their own research.

The lecture component of the school program included two comprehensive lectures of Prof. Vladislav Blatov. He gave a talk on computer analysis in crystal chemistry, methods, programs, databases and expert systems for crystallochemical analysis. The primary focus was on practical trainings held together with Dr. Eugeny Alexandrov and Andrey Golov. The practical trainings introduced the participants to the visualization of 0D, 1D, 2D and 3D structures, crystal structure simplification techniques, topological identification of lattice, the analysis of inorganic compounds, molecular crystals and metal-organic structures, the research of intermetallides with the use of nanocluster models, combination of topological and DFT methods. During the school, new cooperative relations were established with the universities and institutes of China, in particular, the agreement on joint research in the field of searching for new materials with nonlinear optical properties with Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry.

“Almost three days of intensive work, perfect organization provided by the company “Materials, Software, Equipment and Applications” (MSEA), - Prof. Blatov describes the school. - It is important for us that our scientific event was the first one conducted in TusPark. The official opening of the technopolis was on the next day after the school had been closed. The technopolis provides excellent conditions for scientific research and implementations of the results, as the incubator’s companies closely cooperate with enterprises.

The school “Topological Methods in Materials Science” was only one part of the long-term business trip of the SCTMS director Prof. Vladislav Blatov in China. In the Northwestern Polytechnical University (Xian) the Russian-Chinese research group began its work under supervision of Prof. Vladislav Blatov. He also conducted negotiations with the Chinese company “Particle Cloud” on the development of new materials for 3D printing in Samara.

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