Ferroelectric Meeting of Americas- FMAs

Dear Colleagues,

In the recent years, it is highly noticeable that the field of ferroelectrics has touched and crossed over the boundaries of several interdisciplinary fields and it has made its impact in various ways. Historically, "International Meeting on Ferroelectricity - IMF" series always brought out some new scientific concepts to the community in the areas of basic solid state science, electrical engineering, materials science and several cross-coupled areas such as bio-physics, clean energy harvesting and technology. We want to continue to emphasize through this series of meetings that the FIELD OF FERROELECTRICS is of great importance and has a deep attraction for the scientific community.

The field of ferroelectrics as well as related phenomena and electronic materials which brought out the new cross-coupled effects like multiferroics, bioferroics and so on to the scientific community is also beginning to integrate the emerging science of the new era in the developing countries of the Americas. To facilitate and accelerate our goals we are proposing to bring together the representatives from several Central and South American countries and form a special society of Ferroelectrics, œ"Ferroelectric Meeting of Americas - FMAs", so that they can communicate, interact with each other and develop a co-operative and collaborative research program in the Americas. We are planning to have representative person(s) as main points of contact or Champions from each of these countries and collectively identify them as the FMA-Board. More representatives will be added as the need arises in the future.

In September 2017, at the time of "International Meeting on Ferroelectricity - IMF-2017" in San Antonio, Texas, USA, we will initiate the first FMA-1. In this context we would like to include the ferroics related research activities from the Americas and also stimulate the research environment of ferroics related collaborative research at various universities and institutes from the participating countries. Some of the countries have already responded and their representatives are identified as part of the FMA-Board. More representatives will be added on the list as we get a definite response from them.

Sincerely,
Amar Bhalla,
General Chair, IMF 2017,
UTSA, San Antonio, TX, USA.