The aim of the second functional oxide thin films conference was to “foster the exchange of ideas between the relevant energy and information themes,” bringing together top researchers in the fields of condensed matter physics, chemistry, physical chemistry, and materials science. The organizers also sought to mix high-profile young researchers in the field of functional oxides (e.g., William Chueh - Stanford University, Bharat Jalan – University of Minnesota, Roman Engel-Herbert – Penn State, Nicola Perry – Kyushu University / MIT, Nicole Benedek – Cornell University, Pu Yu – Tsinghua University, Ethan Crumlin - LBNL) with more experienced scientists (e.g., Nini Pryds – Technical University of Denmark, Rotraut Merkle – MPI Stuttgart, Shriram Ramanathan – Purdue, Stephen Skinner - Imperial College, Ho Nyung Lee - Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Ariando – National University of Singapore, Peter van Aken, MPI Stuttgart), which enabled fruitful discussions both during the meeting and during “down” times or meals. It was important to maintain good representation across the globe, as the research focus in the U.S., for example, is often different from that in Europe or in Asia, and the small meeting size allowed the speakers the freedom to discuss new and often unpublished results. All of these factors contributed to a highly successful meeting: several of the attendants praised the quality of the conference in terms of how much they learned, the many networking and collaborative opportunities, and overall enjoyability. Many also expressed interest in helping to organize the next conference – an excellent indicator of how the conference was perceived.

We had APL Materials as a Bronze sponsor, and a future, special issue of APL Materials will be dedicated to the topics discussed at this conference. The Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Elsvier were media partners, the conference was endorsed by E-MRS and the AVS Thin Film Division.

As noted above, many of the attendees have offered to help organize the next “Functional Oxide Thin Films for Advanced Energy and Information Technology Conference” and efforts to do this for 2017 are already underway. This is a highly positive development as the present organizers believe that it is crucial to keep up this particular conference -- these smaller meetings have been extremely useful to our community.

Following the success of the first Oxide Thin Films conference in Chicago, which took place in July 2014 we are delighted to be organising a second series.

Complex oxide thin films are finding applications in a wide range of energy and information technologies, including electron and ion conductors, photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, dielectrics, and resistive switching. Irrespective of whether single thin films or more sophisticated multilayered systems are employed, each of these technologies requires a thorough knowledge of the oxide physicochemical properties, its interactions with the environment and the role of interface/boundary effects that might stem between film and substrate, layers with different compositions or even simply from the grain boundaries. Whilst depending on the technology area the key properties might be different,  many of the materials optimization strategies may be common. Therefore, we believe that the discussion between diverse and even complementary researchers communities can be extremely beneficial for a better understanding of the crucial aspects that need to be address to improve materials properties. The purpose of this meeting is hence to foster the exchange of ideas between the relevant energy and information themes with the overall aim of sparking extensive discussions of  the advances that materials physics and chemistry can make in thin film applications.

Key Sessions

1. Nanoionics
2. Batteries and supercapacitors
3. Fuel cells 
4. Nanoelectronics
5. Ionic and electronic conductors
6. Heterostructures and interfaces
7. Resistive switching
8. Oxide electrochemistry

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Albert Tarancón (Catalonia Institute for Energy Research-IREC)
'GRAIN BOUNDARY ENGINEERING OF OXIDE THIN FILMS FOR IMPROVING THEIR PERFORMANCE IN SOLID STATE DEVICES '

Ho Nyung Lee (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
'CORRELATIONS BETWEEN STRAIN AND OXYGEN STOICHIOMETRY IN EPITAXIAL COMPLEX OXIDES'

William Chueh (Stanford University) 
'GROWTH & REDOX CAPACITY OF COHERENTLY STRAINED CERIA ULTRATHIN FILMS' 

Nini Pryds (Technical University of Denmark)
'HIGH ELECTRON MOBILITY IN OXIDE HETEROSTRUCTURES' 

Stephen Skinner (Imperial College London)
'SURFACE STRUCTURE AND CHEMISTRY OF MODEL LAYERED OXIDE FUEL CELL CATHODES'

Rotraut Merkle (Max Planck Institute) 
'PEROVSKITES WITH OXYGEN VACANCY, PROTON AND HOLE CONDUCTION: DEFECT CHEMISTRY, RELAXATION KINETICS, USE AS CATHODE MATERIAL' 

Shriram Ramanathan (Harvard University)
'COMPLEX OXIDES AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE' 

Kendra Letchworth-Weaver (Argonne National Laboratory)
'DETERMINING OPERANDO SURFACE STRUCTURE BY COMBINING FIRST PRINCIPLES THEORY WITH EXPERIMENTAL DATA'

Confirmed Invited Speakers

Brian Sheldon (Brown University)
'ELECTROCHEMICALLY INDUCED STRESSES IN OXIDE THIN FILMS'

Nicole Benedek (Cornell University)
'LINKING CRYSTAL STRUCTURE AND CHEMISTRY TO CHEMICAL EXPANSION IN COMPLEX OXIDES' 

Felip Sandiumenge (ICMAB) 
'MODULATION OF SURFACE STRAIN AND ALTERED CURRENTS BY MISFIT RELIEVING DEFECTS IN EPITAXIAL COMPLEX OXIDES' 

Roman Engel-Herbert (Pennsylvania State University) 
'GROWTH, OPTICAL AND ELECTRICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CORRELATED VANADATES THIN FILMS'

Bharat Jalan (University of Minnesota)
'HYBRID MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY FOR BaSnO3 FILMS and HETEROSTRUCTURES USING TIN RADICALS'

Milan Radovic (Paul Scherrer Institut) 
'EXPLORING TRANSITION METAL OXIDES: CREATE AND CONTROL (C&C)'

Seung-Hyub Baek (Korea Institute of Science and Technology)
'NON-VOLATILE FUNCTIONALIZATION OF 2DEG CONDUCTIVITY AT OXIDE INTERFACES'

Hua Zhou (Argonne National Laboratory) 
'BRIDGING FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY OF IONIC ELECTROLYTE GATING ON OXIDE HETEROSTRUCTURES: STRUCTURAL BASIS'

Pu Yu (Tsinghua University)
'CONDUCTANCE AT 71o DOMAIN WALLS IN BiFeO3 THIN FILMS'

Ying-Hao Eddie Chu (National Chiao Tung University)
'ENHANCING FUNCTIONALITIES OF BiFeO3 VIA STRUCTURAL COUPLING'

Tobias Huber (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
'STUDY OF NANO ENGINEERED GRAIN BOUNDARIES ON IONIC AND ELECTRONIC CONDUCTIVITY IN Sr-DOPED LaMnO3 THIN FILMS UNDER OPERANDO CONDITIONS' 

George Harrington (Kyushu University)
'MODIFYING THE IONIC CONDUCTIVITY OF THIN FILM FLUORITE STRUCTURED ELECTROLYTES'

Matthew Dawber (Stony Brook University)
'CONTROLLING POLARIZATION IN FERROELECTRIC SUPERLATTICES: FROM GROWTH TO DEVICES'

Paul Evans (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
'NANOSCALE FERROELECTRIC STRIPE DOMAINS IN DEFORMED AND NANOSTRUCTURED SUPERLATTICE CRYSTALS' 

Divine Kumah (North Carolina State University) 
'TUNING THE STRUCTURAL AND ELECTRONIC PROPERTIES OF COMPLEX-OXIDE INTERFACES' 

Peter A. van Aken (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research)
'STRUCTURAL DEFECTS AND LOCAL INTERFACIAL CHEMISTRY OF COMPLEX OXIDE HETEROINTERFACES'

Nicola Perry (Kyushu University) 
'OPTICAL TRANSMISSION EVALUATION OF Sr(Ti,Fe)O3-α THIN FILM DEFECT EQUILIBRIA AND KINETICS'

Albina Y. Borisevich (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
'UNDERSTANDING AND CONTROLLING LOCAL ENVIRONMENTS IN OXIDES WITH ABERRATION CORRECTED STEM'

Alexie Kolpak (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
'FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ELECTROCHEMICAL STABILITY, REACTION MECHANISM, AND ACTIVITY OF PEROVSKITE OXIDE OER CATALYSTS'

Matthias Elm (Justus-Liebig University)
'INFLUENCE OF SURFACE EFFECTS ON THE TRANSPORT PROPERTIES IN MESOPOROUS OXIDES' 

Ann Deml (Colorado School of Mines)
'INCORPORATING FINITE TEMPERATURE EFFECTS INTO MATERIALS BY DESIGN: COMPLEX FUNCTIONAL OXIDES' 

Tae Heon Kim (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
'POLAR METALS BY GEOMETRIC DESIGN' 

Felix Messerschmitt (ETH Zurich)
'OXIDE-BASED RESISTIVE SWITCHES: UNDERSTANDING FUNDAMENTALS TO DESIGN NEW DEVICE CONCEPTS'

Ethan Crumlin (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
'PROBING THE SOLID/LIQUID INTERFACES OF ELECTROCHEMICAL SYSTEMS USING OPERANDO APXPS'

Professor Ariando (National University of Singapore)
'IMAGING AND CONTROL OF EMERGING FUNCTIONALITIES AT COMPLEX OXIDE INTERFACES'

Carmela Aruta (National Research Council, CNR-SPIN)
'THE ROLE OF STRUCTURAL AND CHEMICAL DEFECTS ON IONIC CONDUCTION AND RELATED ELECTROCHEMICAL REACTION IN OXIDE THIN FILMS'

Bryan Esser (Ohio State University)
'CHARACTERIZING ATOMIC SCALE ORDERING PHENOMENA IN OXIDE THIN FILMS USING SCANNING TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY'

Target Audience

2016 OTF Poster Prize

The conference chairs will be awarding 3 poster prizes, kindly sponsored by APL Materials, for the best poster display and presentation. To be in with a chance of winning, submit your poster by 04 January 2016.  The winners will be selected shortly after the Poster Session and the following prizes will be awarded. 1st Place $125, 2nd Place $70, 3rd Place $40.