PROGRAM

The NC-AFM 2024 conference program has 3 components:

A satellite workshop on August 4^th, aimed at students, with a focus on machine learning and AI in SPM. (Separate registration needed to ensure enough drinks and food during breaks)
A Zurich Instruments technical symposium on Monday morning, August 5^th, 2024, sponsored by Zurich Instruments. The target audience is students and users of Zurich Instrument equipment. (Free, separate registration needed to ensure enough coffee and lunch)
The scientific schedule of the NC-AFM 2024 starts Monday morning, August 5^th, 2024 at 2pm.

Satellite Workshop on AI/ML in NC-AFM

13:00-14:00	Machine Learning Fundamentals	Nick Sullivan Molina (McGill University)
14:00-15:00	Machine Learning tools for SPM Automation	Steve Arias (Brookhaven National Lab.)
15:00-15:30	Break
15:30-16:30	Neural Networks in AFM	Adam Foster (Aalto University)
16:30-17:30	Analysis of high-resolution AFM images with deep learning	Ruben Perez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
17:30-18:30	Reception for satellite workshop participants

Venue: École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), room A1600. More detailed information is available here.

Note: please indicate your satellite workshop participation when registering for the NC-AFM conference.

Zurich Instruments technical symposium

Separate sign-up, sponsored by Zurich Instruments.

9:00-9:10	Zurich Instruments for Scanning Probe Microscopy	Jorge Medina (Zurich Instruments USA)
9:10-9:40	Resonance Enhancement Techniques in SPM	Romain Stomp (Zurich Instruments)
9:40-10:20	Exploring the Full Potential of Multimodal Cantilever for MFM, KPFM, and True Atomic Resolution AFM	Hans Josef Hug (EMPA, Switzerland)
10:20-10:50	Coffee break
10:50-11:30	Hands-on Tutorial on Resonance Engineering	Romain Stomp (Zurich Instruments)
11:30-12:10	Cryogenic AFM instrumentation and automation with Python API	Yoichi Miyahara (Texas State University)
12:10-13:30	Lunch sponsored by Zurich Instrument

The abstracts and biographies of the speakers can be found here.

Venue: McIntyre Medical Building (6th floor), McGill University, 1200 Av des Pins W. More detailed information is available here.

NC-AFM 2024 scientific and social program

The scientific schedule starts on Monday afternoon. Oral presentations are held during the days and two poster sessions with finger food and drinks are offered on the evenings of Tuesday and Wednesday. On Monday a welcome reception sponsored by Zurich Instruments is planned. Excursions to various sites are offered on Thursday afternoon and the conference dinner is scheduled for Thursday evening. The conference closes Friday noon.

A short program is available here and the full program is available here (both as PDFs).

Note that no paper copies of the program will be available at the conference site in order to minimize the carbon footprint of the conference.

Venue: McIntyre Medical Building (6th floor), McGill University, 1200 Av des Pins W. More detailed information is available here.

Presentation guidelines: oral presentation

The length of oral presentations is 20 minutes; plan for 15 minutes of talk and 5 minutes for questions and discussion. The ideal format of slide projection is 16:9, however, also slides in 4:3 format will reproduce well. We expect that you bring your own notebook computer with a socket for a standard (type A) HDMI connector. If this is not the standard of your notebook, bring a respective adaptor for a type A connector. If you are not able to bring your own presentation device, have your presentation prepared in .pptx (.ppt) or .pdf format on a USB stick. Make sure that the USB stick is scanned for viruses and does not contain any other data. Hand it over to the conference organisers upon registration but keep a safety copy of your presentation on another storage medium for yourself.

Presentation guidelines: poster presentation

We accept posters exclusively in portrait orientation ideally having a size of 90 x 120cm (width x height, DIN A0). Smaller posters are accepted if none of the dimensions exceeds the respective dimension of the DIN A0 format. There is no template for the poster presentation, just obey common rules for good poster communication (see below for guidelines). Remember that there is a poster competition and you might win a poster prize if your poster is very well prepared and you present it very well during the poster session!

You can find poster presentation guidelines in brief and in more detail.

Conference publications

The Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology is publishing a new thematic issue ‘At the cutting edge of atomic force microscopy’. This is the ideal venue to publish papers related to the presentations at the conference. See https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/series/117 for more details.

Code of Conduct for NC-AFM conference and workshops [*]

It is the policy of the Conference Organizers that all participants, including attendees, vendors, staff, volunteers, and all other stakeholders at this meetings will conduct themselves in a professional manner that is welcoming to all participants and free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation. Participants will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment at the meetings. Creating a supportive environment to enable scientific discourse at meetings is the responsibility of all participants.

Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.

Violations of this code of conduct policy should be reported to meeting organizers. Sanctions may range from verbal warning, to ejection from the meeting without refund, to notifying appropriate authorities. Retaliation for complaints of inappropriate conduct will not be tolerated. If a participant observes inappropriate comments or actions and personal intervention seems appropriate and safe, they should be considerate of all parties before intervening.

Need to Report Something? Contact nc-afm2024@conftool.com or one of the three organizers in person (Catherine Boisvert, Omur Dagdeviren or Peter Grütter).

* Adapted from the APS Code of Conduct for APS Meetings policy.

Photography and recording at conference

It is planned to take a conference picture. By attending the Zurich Instruments symposium or the group photo session, you give permission for your picture to be published. For privacy reasons no other photographs (e.g. at the poster sessions or during the scientific program) will be allowed without permission of the persons being photographed.

Disclaimer: Names, email address and institutions will be made available to the sponsors of the conference.