Source: China Thz R&D Network

The 36th Annual International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) was held in Houston, TX, USA, on October 3-7, 2011, at the Hyatt Regency Houston. This 5-day-conference was hosted by Rice University and organized by a Local Organizing Committee under the auspices of the IOC, and with technical co-sponsorship from the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S).

There were 10 plenary lectures especially made by invited reporters, 54 presentations in breakout sessions, 246 oral reports and 190 posters. More than 500 papers were collected in the conference journal covering fields in gyrotron, THz sources, THz imaging technology, spectrum technology, etc. Five hundred and more scientists from more than 27 countries and regions, such as USA, UK, France, China, Japan, Russia, attended the conference. Chinese Academicians Liu Shenggang from UESTC (University of Electronic Science and Technology in China) and Wu Peiheng from NJU (Nanjing University) together with other ten more Chinese scholars were also invited to attend the meeting. Deep and constructive opinions were exchanged among scientists on the latest academic achievement and topics of IRMMW-THz applications in industry, astronomy, safety security and biomedicine, THz imaging and image applications, THz radar and telecommunication, THz potentialities as well as issues of future market and orientations.Meanwhile, the comprehensive involvement of industrial community in the R&D of THz S&T brought this meeting more social and economic value and significance.

Furthermore, there were two Nobel Plenary Lectures respectively made by Prof. Robert W. Wilson from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who won Nobel Prize in Physics 1978 for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation and Prof. Robert F. Curl from Rice University, who won Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996 for the discovery of fullerenes. Their reports have indicated the important role that this field has play in the development of modern science. In addition, the 2012 IRMMW-THz was decided to be held in Wollongong Australia, Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, 2012 by the IOC (International Organization Committee) of IRMMW-THz.

This year, the Committee was also pleased to announce the winner of the 2011 Kenneth J. Button Prize (An Infrared and Millimeter Wave Prize): Professor Daniel Grischkowsky from Oklahoma State University, who was awarded the prize "for pioneering contributions to the development of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy." This Kenneth J. Button Prize, also known as the Nobel Prize in this field, is evaluated and granted by the Institute of Physics in London to encourage the scholars for their outstanding contributions to the field of infrared, millimeter and THz waves. So far there are only twenty prize winners all over the world including Chinese Academicians Liu Shenggang and Shen Xuechu.