Materials are so essential to societal advance that early civilizations are often named after a particular material (e.g. “Bronze age” and “Iron age”). Pivotal materials at the foundation of our modern civilization are far too diverse to name just a few. Electronics and photonics, nevertheless, capture the key technologies and industries that influence every aspect of our life such as computing, communication, and health care. Advance in photonic and electronic materials thus bring unquestionable societal benefit in catalyzing revolutionary changes and transforming the platform that technologies are built on. The two-day workshop was held on September 25-26th in Alexandria, VA brings together leading experts performing research in several classes of materials that are representative of advanced electronic and photonic materials. New synthetic methods, characterization techniques, computation methods for discovering new materials and new properties constantly developed by researchers working in the areas of electronic and photonic materials have potential for transformative impact in many areas of great societal impact including computing, communication, and health care.
After the conclusion of the workshop, a report has been written jointly by the participants and it can be found here.