KATHMANDU: The 13th International Conference on Quasicrystals (ICQ13) has begun in Dhulikhel, a town near Kathmandu, on Monday in presence of over 150 world scientists.

Prof. Dan Shechtman, the Nobel laureate of Chemistry 2011, has also arrived in Kathmandu to take part in the ICQ13.

Shechtman had won the Nobel for the discovery of quasicrystals.

On the sidelines, Shechtman is scheduled to deliver a public lecture at the Tribhuvan University and take part in a talk programme "Technological Entrepreneurship - Key to World Peace and Prosperity" in Kathmandu.

According to the organisers, the six-day event "offers an opportunity for researchers working on quasicrystals and related topics to exchange ideas and encourage collaborations with other research groups, hence promoting material science and engineering."

The scientists in the events will be presenting several abstracts on distinct themes such including formation, growth and phase stability; structure and modelling; mathematics of quasiperiodic and aperiodic structures; physical properties: transport, magnetic, dynamical, mechanical; surfaces and overlayers; applications and new frontiers; metamaterials: polymer, macro molecules, hotonic/phononic crystals, oxide.

Other invited speakers in the ICQ13 include A Goldman (USA); E Abe, N Takemori and T Dotera (Japan); S Ben-Abraham (Israel); E Gaudry, O Perez and A Jagannathan (France); W Steurer, and R Widmer (Switzerland); P Jana (India) and A Julien (Norway) among others, according to Sharma, who also works with the Surface Science Research Centre, University of Liverpool in UK.

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