Introduction to the special issue for the 15th International Conference on Small-Angle Scattering (SAS2012)

Abstract

extensive reports on the conference, including special sessions, plenary speakers, prize winners, satellite meetings etc., the reader is referred to Gilbert (2013) and http://www.ansto.gov.au/Events/ Eventsandresources/Past/SAS2012/index.htm.The scientific publishing landscape is changing. Over the past few meetings of the small-angle scattering community, it has become challenging for conference organizers to publish traditional volumes of proceedings in scientific journals without impacting on metrics of concern to many publishing houses, namely impact factor, despite an expressed need to have proceedings. Equally, many scientists would choose not to submit their findings to proceedings and wish to communicate their work in high-impact-factor journals only. From broadly canvassing the community, it has become evident that both proceedings and selected articles have their own rightful place and are valuable sources of reference for both the newcomer to the field and established researchers alike. As such, for the first time, the organizers of the small-angle scattering conference have published both proceedings (McGillivray et al., 2012) -reflecting the full content of the meeting and reviewed to the extent that the work has been selected for conference presentation -and, here, a special issue in what many would consider to be the traditional and natural home for small-angle scattering, namely Journal of Applied Crystallography.The production of this special issue has been a painstaking process. Attendees were invited to submit articles on the basis that, not only would their work be exposed to rigorous review but, even then, only selected articles would be published. The refereeing process was strict and thorough, many papers were rejected, and all were improved. We are grateful to all the authors that submitted material, whether selected or not, as well as the Guest Co-editors -Andrew Jackson, Yoshiyuki Amemiya, Charles Dewhurst, Dmitri Svergun and Aldo Craievich -the many referees for their invaluable effort which made the publication of this special issue possible and, indeed, the entire scientific programme committee that developed such a compelling programme. We would also like to thank Lisa Stephenson and Peter Strickland at the IUCr Editorial Office in Chester, UK, for their support and guidance. The resulting compilation provides an excellent overview of the state of the art across the spectrum of small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering (SANS and SAXS), covering the fields of application, theory, methods of analysis and instrumentation. Kaneko et al. (2014) report on the application of time-resolved SANS to study guestexchange processes in co-crystals of syndiotactic polystyrene. The use of scattering methods to investigate industrially relevant processing is described by Portale et al. (2013), with the application of combined small-and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/ WAXS) to polystyrene, and by Hemmi et al. (2014) for stereo-complex crystals of poly(lactic acid) blends under shear flow. The influ...

Effect of Au thickness on the evolution of self-assembled Au droplets on GaAs (111)A and (100)

“…After the nucleation, due to the weaker binding energy between surface and Au adatoms ( E I ) than the binding energy between Au adatoms (E A ), Au atoms have a tendency to form 3-D islands rather than a layer ( E A  >  E I ). The size expansion of Au droplets with increased thicknesses can also be seen with a variety of metal droplets on various surfaces [32-38]. As is well known, the diffusion length ( L D ) can be expressed as $L_D=\sqrt{D_{\mathrm{S}}t}$, where D S is the diffusion coefficient and t is the residence time of the atoms.…”