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43
the chair of the surface science division of
IUVSTA and the Presidents of the Vacuum
Societies of Australia, China, India, Iran,
Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan.
The conference was organised once every
three years from 1999-2008 and every two
years since 2010, by the vacuum science
societies of the member countries. The
conference location rotates among cities
in Asia and Australia. VASSCAA-1 was
organised by the Vacuum Society of Japan
in September 1999 at Tokyo, Japan. It was
attended by over 300 scientists from industry
and universities. These conferences are
listed in Table VI. VASSCAA-9 is scheduled
in 2018 at Sydney, Australia.
Concerning the ICTF conference series,
there is reference (in the Opening Address
in the Proceedings of the 1972 meeting)
to a Thin Film Conference being held in
Clausthal and Göttingen in 1966. Three
years later the ICTF was held in Boston,
and at that time an International Thin Film
Committee was set up to organise future
conferences. The next was in 1972 in
Venice but a numbering system was not
yet in use. In 1975 the conference was
titled the 3
rd
International Conference on
Thin Films (ICTF-3) and the numbering has
continued since then. Since 1980, when
the International Thin Film Committee was
amalgamated into the IUVSTA to become
the first Thin Film Division committee
(see above), this conference series has
become the responsibility of the Thin
Film Division and it is organised by that
Division in conjunction with a host nation.
The conferences are held triennially, see
Table VII, with ICTF-17 taking place at
New-Delhi, India in 2017.
The first European Vacuum Conference
(EVC) was held under the joint
sponsorship of the IUVSTA and the British
Vacuum Council (BVC). It was held on 11-
15 April 1988 at the University of Salford,
Manchester, UK. It was organised by
the Vacuum Science Division of IUVSTA,
of which N. R. Whetten (USA) was
the Chair. The Conference Chairman
was J. S. Colligon (GB). There were
210 delegates from 25 countries and
110 papers were presented. The
conference was supported by an
Exhibition of equipment and a two-day
Training Course in vacuum technology
coordinated by A. Chambers (GB) for
the BVC. The success of this conference
ensured that it became the first of a series.
EVC conferences are organised bien-
nially (triennially if the IVC is in Europe)
by one of the European vacuum soci-
eties and IUVSTA. These conferences
are listed in Table VIII. EVC-15 is sche
duled in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2018,
30 years after EVC-1 and J. S. Colligon
will give an introduction at this anni-
versary conference.
As can be seen, many of the STD
functions are now carried out through
the Divisions. Under this arrangement
the Divisions have the directive to advise
the Union on scientific matters. They
report to the Union’s Executive Council
Plasma Ion Nitriding
Mostafa Hassani-Gangaraj
SUMMARY