New Functional Materials

Since the discovery of graphene (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2010), the research of two-dimensional (2D) materials has grown over the past decade into a vast field of research today. 2D materials provide radically new opportunities to explore fundamental physics as well as enabling technological applications from nano-electronics, spin-electronics, optics to biomedicals, showing great promise towards commercialization. The physics community and the government agencies all over the world are actively responding on this new trend, and exemplary activities include: the launch of large scale projects by all major funding agencies in the US including NSF, DARPA, ARO, AFRO etc.; the launch of the Graphene Flagship program, the biggest research initiative ever by European Union (according to the European Commission: 'history's greatest distinction for excellent research'); and the launch of the new journal “2D Materials” by IOP publishing group. Thousands of researchers worldwide are working actively in this newly emerged field. The future of this field holds even greater potential, with more and more 2D materials being discovered, and with the infinite possibilities to create new superstructure with tailored electrical and optical properties by depositing different 2D materials on the top of each other. The field of 2D materials is growing, and it can be anticipated that over the next decade it will remain as the hottest and most important topic of modern physics. The research of 2D materials is actively pursued by faculties in most universities in Hong Kong, and there is a collaborative research project on 2D materials just funded by RGC involving three universities (HKU, HKUST, PolyU). In the nearby regions including mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Korea, there are also a large number of groups working in the related area. Hence, we expect a large pool of faculties, postdocs, and research postgraduates in Hong Kong and the nearby region. The proposed ASI is a timely event that can significantly benefit these researchers during the most important developing stage of the field. This ASI aims to bring to Hong Kong the world-renowned scientists in the field of 2D materials. The lecturers include one of the Nobel Laureates who has initiated this field, and others are all leaders in the different sub-disciplines of the field. It creates a platform for local academics to gain insights into the new scientific and technological discoveries and inventions in this field.