Prof. Ken Lau, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, chaired the 9th International Conference on Hot Wire (Cat) and Initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition (HWCVD9) from September 6-9, 2016 at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia. The conference attracted 65 scientists and engineers from countries that included the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain, Japan, South Korea, India, and South Africa. The participants came from academic institutions, corporations, and government agencies that included Drexel University, MIT, University of Southern California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, TU Eindhoven, TU Graz, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Seoul National University, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron Limited, and GVD Corporation.
This international conference provided an engaging forum for researchers and students to discuss the latest discoveries and findings with chemical vapor deposition processes and materials that utilized filament heating for activating and catalyzing reactions. The conference covered a broad range of areas from fundamentals of chemical kinetics and reaction pathways to applications and commercialization of solar cells, batteries, supercapacitors, nuclear fusion, and electronics. Plenary lectures by Profs. Karen Gleason (MIT), Ruud Schropp (TU Eindhoven), and Hideki Matsumura (JAIST) described the current state and latest developments of HWCVD technologies around the world. As part of the overall conference experience, the participants also had an evening at Hotel du Pont for a conference banquet and a social excursion to Longwood Gardens for the Nightscape garden and lights display.
Prof. Ken Lau successfully received funding through Drexel University, MIT, GVD Corporation, Blue Wave Semiconductors, and Tokyo Electron Limited. In addition, he received a conference grant through the U.S. National Science Foundation to further support this event. The findings and work presented at the HWCVD9 conference will be published in a forthcoming Special Issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Thin Solid Films.
