IUMRS-ICA 2008 Symposium ’AA. Rare-Earth Related Material Processing and Functions‘

Rare-earth related materials have been widely used in various advanced technologies and devices because of their novel functions such as excellent magnetic and optical properties. For the fabrication of the next generation of new rare-earth related materials with novel functions, it is necessary to design a wide range of materials from nano-scale to macro-scale and to develop novel techniques realizing such designs. Indeed, there has been great progress in the preparation, processing and characterization of new rare-earth materials covering magnetic alloys, inorganic and organic fluorescence materials. In the International Union of Materials Research Societies International Conference in Asia 2008 (IUMRS-ICA2008) (9–13 December, Nagoya, Japan), the symposium on 'AA: Rare-Earth Related Material Processing and Functions' was organized to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of recent advances in fabrication processing and applications of rare-earth related materials with various scaled and unique morphologies. Many papers were presented in the symposium, and some papers were accepted to be published in this proceeding after review. Editors: Takayuki KOMATSU (Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan) Tsugio SATO (Tohoku University, Japan) Ken-ichi MACHIDA (Osaka University, Japan) Hirotoshi FUKUNAGA (Nagasaki University, Japan) Jiro YAMASAKI (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan) Honjie ZHANG (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Chun Hua YAN (Peking University, China) Jianrong QIU (Zhejiang University, China) Jong HEO (Pohang University, Korea) Setsuhisa TANABE (Kyoto University, Japan) Hiroshi TATEWAKI (Nagoya City University, Japan) Tomokatsu HAYAKAWA (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan) Yasufumi FUJIWARA (Osaka University, Japan)