Aperiodic 2006, organized under the auspices of the Commission on Aperiodic Crystals of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), was held at Royal Hotel, Zao, Miyagi (Japan) from 17th to 22nd September 2006. The conference was attended by 121 participants from 22 countries, providing an interdisciplinary exchange of updated research among the scientific community of crystallographers, physicists, mathematicians, materials scientists and chemists.
Aperiodic 2006 is the fifth in a regular series of conferences since the establishment of the Commission on Aperiodic Crystals by the IUCr in 1993. The first conference took place in Les Diablerets (Switzerland) in 1994 (Aperiodic 1994) and has been held every three year since: Aperiodic 1997 in Alpe d’Huez (France), Aperiodic 2000 in Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and Aperiodic 2003 in Belo Horizonte (Brazil). This Aperiodic Crystals series of conferences is the successor of the International Conference on Modulated Structures, Polytypes and Quasicrystals (MOSPOQ), which have been held in Marseille (1984), Wroclaw (1986), Varanasi (1988) and Balatonszeplak (1991). Aperiodic 2006 is the first to be held in Asia and all contributions to Aperiodic 2006 have been categorized into 12 fields; (A) structure, (B) defects and diffuse scattering, (C) mathematics of aperiodic crystals, (D) phase transition, (E) crystallography, (F) properties, (G) interfaces and surfaces, (H) theoretical studies on aperiodic crystals, (I) applications, (J) phonon and phason, (K) morphology and growth, and (L) others. Tutorials by Professor A. Janner, Dr. L. Palatinus and Dr. M. de Boissieu were given on the afternoon of 17th September. Oral presentations were held every day and poster presentations were scheduled for the evenings of 19th and 20th September. These presentations covered a broad range of subjects from mathematical models in aperiodic crystals, incommensurate, composite and modulated phase of elements under pressure, novel structures of approximants, new quasicrystals in soft materials. The conference was closed with concluding remarks by Professor T. Janssen.
All contributions have been reviewed through the normal refereeing procedure. We are grateful to all reviewers and authors for their assistance in the preparation of the proceedings before and/or after the conferences.
Aperiodic 2006 was mainly supported by SORST-JST and also kindly sponsored by the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials (IMRAM), Tohoku University, IUCr, the Iwatani Naoji Foundation, the Kashima Foundation and Kao Co. Limited.
Aperiodic 2006 is greatly indebted to the members of the local organizing committee: Dr. K. S. Kameoka, Dr. N. Fujita and Mr. S. Ohhashi and our secretaries, Miss S. Fujimoto and Mrs. N. Yubuta. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the organizing committee, program committee and international steering committee for their help in organizing the conference, to the chairs of all sessions and reviewers who generously devoted their time to the project. Finally, we appreciate SORST-JST for their support of the project for five years (2002–2007). Without this support, these would be no late development on quasicrystals.
Guest Editors
A. P. Tsai
Institute of Multidisciplinary Research
for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University
A. Yamamoto
National Institute for Materials Science
March 2007