Third International Indentation Workshop, 15 - 20 July 2007, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge

在过去的二十年里，用于科学研究和工业应用的仪表化压痕技术(也称为纳米压痕)有了惊人的发展。在几种情况下，纳米压痕技术是探索测试样品行为的唯一可行的方法。此外，这些技术是跨学科性质的，涵盖几个科学科目，如物理、化学、材料科学和冶金、生物科学和生物材料、地球物理和地质学。有鉴于此，我们计划于2007年7月15日至20日在剑桥大学卡文迪什实验室举办第三届国际压痕工作坊。我们已经邀请了15位研究领域的顶尖专家进行特邀演讲(请参阅标题支持案例)。工作坊的技术会议将持续四天半。在最初的四天中，每一天都将有四次受邀的演讲和大约10次口头陈述。此外，工作坊将展出约二十幅海报介绍，工作坊最后一天将设有公开讨论环节，邀请参加者自由发表意见。根据我们的经验，这类讨论对发展新构思非常有用。主办机构的目的是鼓励青年科学家参加工作坊。因此，我们将他们的注册费保持在非常低的水平，仅为每人125英镑。事实上，即使是常规参与者的注册费也相对较低。为了鼓励参与者之间自由和富有成效的讨论，茶歇/咖啡休息时间安排在卡文迪什的同一个房间，在那里将展示海报和展览工具。此外，我们亦举办了多项社交活动，例如欢迎会和工作坊晚宴，以加强参加者之间的科学和协作交流。工作坊所产生的知识将透过在英国著名科学期刊《应用物理杂志D》上发表高质素的手稿而广泛传播。我们非常希望是次会议在增进科学认识和发展国际合作方面会非常成功。

During the past two decades there has been a phenomenal growth of instrumented indentation techniques (also known as nanoindentation) for scientific research and for industrial applications. In several situations, nanoindentation techniques are the only viable ones with which to explore the behaviour of the test samples. In addition, these techniques are of an interdisciplinary nature and cover several scientific subjects, such as physics, chemistry, materials science and metallurgy, biological sciences and biomaterials, geophysics and geology. It is, therefore, particularly beneficial to organise a workshop in which scientists from different subjects can fully participate.With the above view in mind, we plan to organise the Third International Indentation Workshop at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, from 15 - 20 July 2007.We have already extended invitation to fifteen leading experts in their fields of research to give invited talks (see Case for Support for titles).The technical sessions of the Workshop are going to be spread over four and a half days. On each of the first four days there will be four invited talks and about 10 contributed oral presentations. Moreover, there will be about twenty Poster Presentations, which will be on display throughout the Workshop duration.On the final day of the Workshop there will be an Open Discussion Session at which participants will be invited to express their views freely. It is our experience that such discussions are extremely useful for the development of new ideas.It is the intention of the organisers to encourage young scientists to participate in the Workshop. We have, therefore, kept their registration fee at a very low level of just 125- per person. In fact, even for the regular participants the registration fee is relatively small.In order to encourage free andfruitful discussion amongst the participants, tea/coffee breaks have been organised in the same room of the Cavendish in which Posters and exhibition instruments will be displayed. Moreover, we have also organised a few social functions, such as welcoming parties and the Workshop Dinner, for enhancing scientific and collaborative interations amongst the participants.Wider dissemination of the knowledge generated at the Workshop will be through the publication of high quality manuscript in a leading UK scientific journal, namely Journal of Applied Physics D.It is very much hoped that the meeting will be very successful in enhancing scientific understanding and in developing international collaboration.