May 5 to 9, 2014. LUŽNICA MANOR
This Workshop focuses on relaxation and diffusion processes in soft materials such as biomaterials, supercooled liquids, glasses, polymer nanocomposites. The subject involves broad range of length and time scales, which are addressed in the context of application of various advanced electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopic techniques. Although the systems under investigation are widely different, the impact of disorder/frustration/confinement on their fundamental properties is often found to be similar. In this respect the EPR provides an insight into the microscopic picture of the local degrees of freedom of the sites where the spin system is confined. The information about the local frustration of the environment is reflected in the energy exchange between the spin system and the lattice and in the energy exchange within the spin system itself. Since EPR uses the local probe – spin system, this aspect deserves attention in the light of emerging theoretical descriptions of dynamics of amorphous/glassy systems in terms of quasilocalised modes in which the EPR sensitivity to relaxation processes fits the experimental time window ranging from nanoseconds to (milli)seconds.
The Workshop will bring together investigators who are at the cutting edge of their field, and it will provide opportunities for junior scientists and graduate students to present their work as well as exchange ideas with leaders in the field.