The ‘GIST-Zhejiang University International Workshop on Advanced Materials Science’ was held at Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology (GIST), South Korea on Nov. 12-15, 2018. Invited by Prof. Tae, the dean of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at GIST, six professors and four students from the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at ZJU attended this workshop.

After a long journey from Hangzhou to Gwangju, professors and students arrived at GIST at 6 p.m., Nov. 12. The next day, the workshop was held in the Materials Science & Engineering Building in the GIST campus. Prof. Chen, Prof. Li, et al., from ZJU, and Prof. Lee, Prof. Kim, et al., from GIST gave very exciting presentations on organic photovoltaics, two-dimensional single crystal, quantum dots hybrid organic semiconductor, and computational study on ordered polymer, etc. After that, a Poster Session for GIST and ZJU students was held. In the evening, after confirming the promising and successful collaboration potential, both sides signed on MOU between two institutes, which includes the joint annual conference, faculty exchange, and graduate and undergraduate student exchange program.

In Nov. 14 morning, Prof. Lee guided us to the Research Institute for Solar and Sustainable Energies and Heeger Center for Advanced Materials. Established by Prof. Kwanghee Lee and Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger, these two institutes are now leading the organic photovoltaics research in South Korea. In the afternoon, there was a short excursion to 5.18 Park, Yeosu & Dolsan, and then we left for Hangzhou in Nov. 15 morning.

The Workshop is an initiative to explore new research horizons in materials science by exchanging valuable ideas and discussing new inventions of fundamental material synthesis and photonics/electronics/energy/biomedical applications between the renowned scientists from GIST and Zhejiang University. We believe that the collaboration between two institutes will be fruitful and contribute to the progress on advanced materials research.

Written by Weitao Yang