[Image above] Credit: ACerS
About 200 people are attending the Glass & Optical Materials Division Annual Meeting this week in Baltimore, Md.
GOMD was among the first of ACerS Division meetings to be cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the community is making the most of being together in person again. Friends and colleagues greeted each other warmly at the reception Sunday night, while a fierce summertime thunderstorm was on display through the glass-roofed atrium of the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor.
Monday, May 23, opened with the Stookey Lecture of Discovery delivered by Herbert Gleiter. Gleiter, a world-renowned solid-state physicist, drew parallels between crystalline materials and nanoglasses after noting that “the world has a strong preference for crystalline materials.” A single crystal grown from the melt “takes the atoms it wants, and it is the same with nanoglasses,” he says. “The nanoglass takes the atoms it wants.” Most of his examples were metallic glasses, but he showed other materials and made a compelling case for a new way of thinking about amorphous materials from the nanostructure to new applications.
A poster session and reception on Monday evening drew attendees together to discuss science with students and other presenters. Tuesday morning, John Ballato of Clemson University talked about new ways of thinking about optical fibers and some exciting new discoveries in the realm of photonic fibers.
Above, Mario Affatigato, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Applied Glass Science, speaks with attendees at GOMD 2022. Right, many people attended the poster session on Monday evening. Credit: ACerS
Much more has and will take place doing the meeting. Be on the lookout for a full report early next week. Meanwhile, check out the ACerS Flickr site for images from GOMD 2022!