WATER AT INTERFACES: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY AND BIOLOGY

Water at interfaces is an emerging field of great topical interest, in its theoretical aspects and in the diversity of its experimental methods. Important new developments in the field involve the properties of water (and ice) next to various types of interface, incorporating both hard and soft substrates. The session will focus, in particular, on biological systems (live cells and organs such as lung and brain), in which the role of water is fundamental. Participating scientists will be drawn from physics, chemistry and the biosciences to present and discuss the structural and dynamic properties of water in different systems, studied by X-ray and neutron scattering, liquid and solid state NMR, computer simulations, real time techniques like Ultrafast IR spectroscopy as well as novel electronic and vibrational spectroscopies.