On October 23, Jeff Terry, associate professor of physics, will be a plenary speaker at NuMat 2012: the Nuclear Materials Conference in Osaka, Japan. His talk is titled “Synchrotron Radiation Studies of Advanced Nuclear Energy Materials” and will be part of the structural and functional materials for fission and fusion reactors session.

Specifically, Terry will talk about the application of synchrotron techniques to measure the electronic structure and the nano- and meso-scale geometric structure of materials of interest to the nuclear community. The methods that have been used to handle radioactive materials safely at synchrotron radiation facilities will also be discussed.

This year’s NuMat will be the second of its kind. The first was held in Karlsuhe, Germany in 2010. The conference is meant to bring people in the nuclear fission and nuclear fusion fields together, and this year it will focus on eight topics: thermodynamics and thermophysics of nuclear fuels, materials modeling and simulation of nuclear fuels, radiation stability of complex microstructures, molten salts for nuclear applications, structural and functional materials for fission and fusion reactors, structural materials modeling and simulation, post irradiation examination of nuclear fuels, and behavior of materials during severe accidents.