The 14th Russia/CIS/Baltic/Japan Symposium on Ferroelectricity (RCBJSF-2018) was successfully held on 14–18 May 2018 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Symposium is a continuation of a series of meetings started in 1976 as the First Soviet-Japanese Symposium on ferroelectricity. The first meeting was jointly initiated by the Nobel Prize winner professor Alexander Prokhorov and Professor Jinzo Kobayashi and was held in Novosibirsk. These bilateral quadrennial symposia were continually held until 1988 (Tsukuba) and afterwards were transformed into the Russia/CIS/Baltic/Japan Symposium on Ferroelectricity (RCBJSF). The symposia became biannual starting with the 9th symposium held in Lithuania in 2008. In 2016, the 13th RCBJSF was held in Matsue, Japan. In 2018, the Symposium returned to Russia and was jointly organized by the Ioffe Institute and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. The Symposium provided scientific discussion on all the important aspects of ferroelectricity, and it also continues to establish and develop scientific cooperation between Japanese, Russian, CIS and Baltic scientists.
RCBJSF-2018 started with a talk by the Ioffe Institute’s acting director Professor Sergey Lebedev on the history and achievements of the Institute. Appropriately, since 2018 is the year of the centenary of the Ioffe Institute – the cradle of Russian physics of the twentieth century.
During the preparation of the Symposium, we received the sad news that Professor Jinzo Kobayashi passed away on February 26, 2018. The main scientific program was preceded by the report of Professor Toru Asahi from Waseda University on the scientific advances of Professor Jinzo Kobayashi.
RCBJSF-2018 attracted 152 participants from 15 countries including Russia (32 participants), Japan (28 participants), Lithuania (6 participants), Latvia, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Canada, China, Czech Republic, India, Portugal, United Kingdom and USA. 52 young scientists participated in the RCBJSF-2018. Altogether the program of the Symposium included 19 invited, 49 oral and 108 poster presentation.
The Proceedings of the RCBJSF-2018 are published in Ferroelectrics Volumes 538 (Part 1) and 539 (Part II). The oral and poster presentations were divided into six sections: (A) Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena; (B) Crystal Structure and Atomic Dynamics; (C) Relaxor Ferroelectrics, (D) Probing the Nanoscale Ferroelectric Behavior and Size Effects; (E) Multiferroics; and (F) Novel Applications, Approaches and Device Concept. However, please note that invited presentations typically covered several topic groups.
As a satellite for the Symposium the “Young Scientists’ School on the Spectroscopic Studies of Critical Dynamics at Structural Phase Transition” was held. Leading scientists from Russia, Japan, France, Lithuania and USA, presented lectures on the most advanced techniques and approaches for the study of critical dynamics.
RCBJSF-2018 was organized with grants from the following sponsors: Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) grant №18-02-20032, Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FASO) and Taylor and Francis. RCBJSF-2018 was also organized with valuable in-kind support and help from the administration and technical staff of the Ioffe Institute, who insured the conference was conducted smoothly.
The Local Organizing committee acknowledges the valuable help of the Interregional Innovative Development Center "INNO-MIR." During the joint meeting of the Organizing and Program Committees of the RCBJSF, the decision was made to organize the 15th Russia/CIS/Baltic/Japan Symposium on Ferroelectricity (RCBJSF-2020) in Okayama, Japan.
Naoshi Ikeda
Alexander S. Sigov
Sergey Vakhrushev
October 2018