Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids 67 (2006) xix–xx
www.elsevier.com/locate/jpcs
Preface
2004 International Conference on Spectroscopies in Novel Superconductors
(SNS’04)
This volume collects invited and contributed papers
submitted at the 2004 International Conference on Spectro-
scopies in Novel Superconductors (SNS’04) held in the
beautiful coastal town of Sitges near Barcelona, Spain, July
11–16, 2004. The articles are grouped broadly by subject
matter with the invited papers placed first roughly in the order
of presentations at the conference. All accepted manuscripts
have undergone the normal review process appropriate for
publication in an archival journal. The scientific program of the
conference is reproduced in the front matter of the volume for
the convenient reference of the reader.
SNS’04 was the seventh in the series of conferences started
at Argonne (1991), which was followed by meetings in Sendai
(1992), Santa Fe (1993), Stanford (1995), Cape Cod (1997) and
Chicago (2001). SNS’04 marked the first time that the
conference was held in Europe. The response to SNS’04 was
extremely enthusiastic. SNS’04 attracted the participation of
some 414 scientists representing 30 countries.
Members of various SNS’04 committees were instrumental
in putting together a most stimulating technical program with
an outstanding list of speakers and deserve a special note of
thanks. In keeping with the traditions of the past SNS
conferences, the scientific discussions at the conference—in
formal as well as informal settings, continued to be intense and
lively, involving the hottest current issues concerning the
mechanisms of superconductivity in novel materials and the
interplay between theoretical models and the latest spectro-
scopic findings.
The success of SNS’04 owes much to the enthusiastic
support and generosity of a large number of individuals and
institutions, many having become regular supporters of this
conference series. These include (in no particular order):
Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid through Paco
Guinea, Pilar López Sancho and Maru Dávila; LURE through
Abdou Tadjeddine, José Avila and Marı́a Asensio; Consejo
Superior de Investigation Cientificas, Spain through José
Fernández de Labastida; SOLEIL through Denis Raoux and
Dominique Chandesris; Universidad Complutense de Madrid
through José González-Calbet and Marı́a Vallet-Regı́; Instituto
de Ciencia de Materiales de Barcelona through Pep Fontcu-
berta and Xavier Obradors; Universidad de Valencia through
Juan Sanchez; Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain
0022-3697/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jpcs.2005.10.007
through José Luis Martı́nez; ALBA through Salvador Ferrer,
Joan Bordas and D. Einfeld, MAX-Lab through Nils
Martensson and Ingolf Lindau; Argonne National Laboratories
through George Crabtree; Boston College through Kevin
Bedell; Brookhaven National Laboratories through Peter
Johnson and John Tranquada; Elsevier, Oxford, through Iain
Craig and Sam Foster; Lawrence Berkeley National Labora-
tories through Zahid Hussain; Los Alamos National Labora-
tories through Sasha Balatsky; Northeastern University
through Arun Bansil; Oak Ridge National Laboratories through
Takeshi Egami; Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
and the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford
University, through Z. X. Shen; and National High Magnetic
Field Laboratories (Los Alamos and Florida) through Greg
Boebinger.
SNS’04 also enjoyed welcome participation of industry. It is
a pleasure to acknowledge our industrial sponsors and the
associated individuals: JOBIN YVON through Didier Lepere,
GAMMADATA SCIENTA through Robert Moberg; Omicron
through Claude Viguier; SPECS-TELSTAR through Josep
Garriga; AXESS TECH through Emmanuel Perrot; CABURN
VACUUM SCIENCE LTD through Colin Everett, EDP
Science; Meca 2000, and Springer.
We note with great sadness that Bill Spicer passed away on
June 6th, 2004. He had a strong association with the SNS
conferences and served as the Conference Chair of the 1995
Stanford conference. He was really excited about coming to
Barcelona and catching up with many old friends and
colleagues at the SNS’04. It is highly appropriate that we
dedicate SNS’04 and this volume to the memory of Bill Spicer
who did so much towards establishing photoemission as a
spectroscopy of wide classes of materials. We are sure that we
will all miss Bill Spicer—his science as well as his humanity.
The practical details and full administration of the
Conference has required a large amount of work, which has
been carried out by a very small group of people. We take this
opportunity to thank in particular Analı́a Bufano, Miguel
Valbuena, Virginia Pantı́n, Claire Berjot, Sarah Kessaria, as
well as Ana Clara and Juliana Bobadilla.
We would like to acknowledge the contribution of many
conference participants and others who helped with the
considerable task of refereeing the substantial number of
submitted manuscripts. The publication staffs at Elsevier,
Oxford and Exeter, especially the Publishing Editors of the
Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids (JPCS), Iain Craig
20 Preface / Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids 67 (2006) xix–xx
and Sam Foster, and the efforts of Jayne Melrose and Clare
Eustace, deserve a special note of thanks for encouragement
and flexibility throughout the publication process. The JPCS
staff members have done a superb job of bringing out the
proceedings of SNS’04 as well as all the earlier SNS
conferences as Special Issues of the journal.
An International Steering Committee for SNS Conferences,
which will be responsible for overseeing the development of
the SNS conferences into the future, was formed at SNS’04.
This committee, whose composition is listed in the front matter
of this volume, includes some of the special ‘friends’ of the
SNS conferences as well as many of the chairs and co-chairs of
past and future (announced) SNS conferences.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: C33 169 35 96 32; fax: C33 169 35 94 56.
We look forward to the next SNS conference, which will be
held in Japan in 2007 under the leadership of Sadamachi
Maekawa and Takashi Takahashi, and to the 2009 SNS
conference in China, which will be organized by Zhong-xian
Zhao, Yu Lu and Dong-lai Feng.
Maria Asensio
Jose Avila*
Arun Bansil
Division Experiences, Synchrotron SOLEIL, L’Orme des
Merisiers, Saint-Aubin BP 48, GIF-sur-YVETTE CEDEX
91192, France
E-mail address: jose.avila@synchrotron-soleil.fr