International Summer School on Basic Concepts and First-Principles Computations for Surface Science:
Applications in Chemical Energy Conversion and Storage

Norderney, Germany, July 21-26, 2013

Scope

Electronic and atomistic processes of molecules at solid surfaces play a central role for a wealth of present and emerging technology. The concomitant conversion of materials, molecules, or energy critically determines functionalities of sensors, catalysts, organic solar or galvanic cells. Further improvement of such technology or the rational design of novel materials will ultimately require a detailed understanding of the electronic structure of corresponding surface or interfacial systems, and how it ties with larger scale aspects like bulk electric, heat or mass transport to yield the overall macroscopic function. As in many other areas of materials science, modern computational science has become a key contributor in this quest, with predictive quality first-principles calculations forming its indispensable and most valuable basis. Over the years the relevance of such calculations, but also their complexity and richness has grown at a similar staggering pace. This relates to both the fundamental challenges in reliably describing surface or interfacial systems from first-principles and the specific concepts developed to use electronic structure techniques in the various application areas.

The motivation and objective of this CECAM/Ψk Summer School is precisely to provide the above summarized training for young researchers (last year PhD students and postdoctoral researchers), i.e. to introduce the use of electronic structure theory in these fields, providing an overview over state-of-the-art concepts and a perspective on current frontiers and future development. For this we invite leading experts and practitioners from various fields to give overview lectures. On the one hand this will be 60min tutorials introducing specific aspects or fundamental concepts. On the other hand the invited speakers will also give 30 min “latest news” talks in which they highlight most recent work to illustrate how the fundamental concepts are put into practice in cutting edge applications. Conceptually, the program is hereby centered on four pillars that together form the scaffold for the present-day operation of first-principles scientists in surface catalysis and basic energy research:

• Fundamentals and challenges of surface electronic structure calculations
• Techniques for the 1st-principles calculation of key quantities
• Integration of 1st-principles data into statistical mechanics
• 1st-principles modeling for the quantitative interpretation of experiments

Conference Fee:

• EUR 700,- Standard accomodation, see description below.
  
• EUR 850,- For participants requiring a single room.
  Please note: We have a very limited number of single rooms available, which will only be assigned for legitimate reasons.

The fee will include lodging (accommodation in shared guest apartments with shower and WC as community facilities) and half-board (breakfast, dinner) from dinner on Sunday to breakfast on Friday, a special conference dinner and outing, as well as the conference material.

Sponsors: