Title: Current Capabailities and Challenges in Computatioal Nanosciences Speaker: H. Eliot Fang, Sandia National LaboratoriesDate/Time: Wednesday, June 21, 2006, 3:00 – 4:00 pm (MDT) Location: Building 980, Room 95 (Sandia NM) videoconferenced to MO52/165 (Sandia CA) Brief Abstract: Nanoscale materials provide both scientific opportunities and challenges for theory and simulation. A key opportunity arises from the fact that nanodimensioned and nanostructured materials have responses governed by features on length scales that are readily accessible to computer modeling methods. In recent years, various modeling and simulation approaches were employed by scientists to study the structures of molecular assemblies, properties at materials interfaces, mechanical interactions between nanomaterials, behaviors of nanocomposites, and functions of nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. Although promising progresses in computation methodologies and modeling approaches have enabled detailed studies of collective and cooperative materials phenomena at nanoscale, significant challenges in theory and numerical algorithm developments still remain to be overcome. It is well recognized that fundamental understanding of the behaviors of nanoscale materials will not be addressed by simple extensions of current theoretical methods that are focused on either atomic or macro scales, but will require bridging the gap between these scales with new concepts, new modeling frameworks and new simulation schemes. In this presentation, recent efforts of computational modeling of nanoscale materials will be reviewed, highlighting their successes and challenges. General issues existing in the computational modeling community will be discussed. Lessons learned from bridging physics at the same and different length scales and coupling different simulation codes will also be shared.CSRI POC: Michael Parks, (505) 845-0512 |