IOP Groups
Dielectrics Group Inaugural Meeting
Wednesday 19 December 2001
Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London
Organised by the Dielectrics Group of the Institute of Physics
Introduction
The Dielectrics Group was founded from the incorporation of the Dielectrics Society into the Institute on 1 October 2001. It is dedicated to the international development and dissemination of dielectrics research, application, measurement and interpretation in a wide range of non-metallic solids and liquids including biological and pharmaceutical systems. The breadth of the subject is significant and the Group sustains the historical cross-disciplinary focus of the Dielectrics Society including its emphasis on meeting the dissemination and discussion needs of both the UK and international scientific and engineering communities.
Dielectrics is a field of knowledge that belongs not only to physics and chemistry, but also to electrical engineering. Dielectrics is not confined to the naroow area of "insulators", but to any non-metal when their interaction with electric or electromagnetic fields is of interest. Polarisation and the dynamics of electric charges are at the heart of dielectrics. Thise working in dielectrics are no longer merely involved in acquiring primary knowledge but are engaged in applying this knowledge to many new fields - as will be illustrated by this inaugural meeting programme. You are cordially invited to this free meeting.
Programme
13:00 Buffet Lunch
14:00 Prestige Lecture: Taming the electron
Professor Marshall Stoneham FRS (University College London)
Abstract:
Dielectrics are remarkably varied, ranging from special bulk glasses to cable polymer insulation and the nanoscale ultrathin films of gate dielectrics. In understanding them, we need to link processes at the atomic scale to bulk phenomena. This understanding is based on systematic experiments, on the external statistics of breakdown and degradation, and on a wealth of materials science and established modelling. When similar understanding emerged in the mechanical properties of materials in the 1950s, ideas such as dislocations transformed mechanical engineering. If dielectric science is to go through a similarly dramatic change, what are the ideas which will be needed? I shall discuss some of the components: charge localisation, energy localisation, and the natures of the electric fields and of the dielectric materials themselves on the atomic and mesoscopic scales.
14:45 Time to relax: the dielectric response of condensed matter
Professor Len Dissado (University of Leicester)
Abstract:
Dielectric response measurements relate to the relaxation of an ensemble of dipoles within the material towards a field-defined equilibrium state. Usually the relaxation dynamics does not follow an exponential law, the signature of identically relaxing independent dipoles with a common relaxation time. Instead time power laws are commonly observed for which a unique relaxation time cannot be defined. Theories for the origin of this form of behaviour will be explored. The relationship to time dependent activation free energies will also be outlined, hinting thereby at the way in which an ensemble of interacting relaxations may be considered.
15:15 Tea
15:45 Pharmaceutical insights
Dr Geoff Smith (De Montfort University)
Abstract:
The process of developing drugs in medicines takes on average 10 years, with only one of some tens of thousands of candidate molecules making it through to the final stages of the market. With the clock ticking on patient life, coupled with ever more stringent quality requirements for pharmaceutical products, it is imperative that the industry continues to assess new developments in measurement technology and the applications for understanding both the materials used for drug development and the biological sites at which the drug is targeted. It is only recently that the measurement of dielectric properties has come to the attention of pharmaceutical scientists and therefore the potential use of these measurements is yet to be fully realised. This presentation will highlight various areas in pharmaceutical materials science in which dielectric spectroscopy can play a full role.
16:15 From macro to micro and beyond
Dr Gary Stevens (University of Surrey)
Abstract:
Understanding the behaviour of dielectric materials at appropriate length scales from molecular level to macroscopic is important in topics as diverse as modelling electromagnetic field effects on the human body, to determining the behaviour of mobile trapped charge on polymer surfaces and at interfaces, to understanding the fundamental relaxation processes of isolated molecules subject to dimensional constraints and how field induced degradation processes at molecular level can lead to macroscopic failure of micro-electronic devices as well as high-voltage power plant. This lecture will discuss this remarkable range of topics, explore the connections between them and speculate on "where next ?".
16:45 Open discussion - future directions
17:15 Close
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