Preface: Phys. Status Solidi C 6/2011
Authors: Cantarero Andrés , Sailor Michael , Nassiopoulou Androula , Schmuki Patrik , Canham Leigh 
Published: June 2011

Dear reader of these proceedings,

Welcome to our collection of papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Porous Semicon‐ductors – Science and Technology (PSST‐2010) and accepted for publication. This conference was held in Valencia, Spain from 14th to 19th March and was the latest in a biennial series running since 1998. This year we accepted a record 223 abstracts with also a record number of countries being represented.

Short Course for Students

The conference was preceded by introductory re‐view lectures and handouts covering the core topics, and given by the conference chairs:

Electrochemical synthesis of porous materials

Chemical and biological sensor applications

Medical, nutritional and consumer care applica‐tions

Electronic and chip‐based sensor applications

Technical Programme

Eight invited speakers gave important review talks: Guiseppe Barillaro, Matthias Böhringer, Claude Levy Clement, Helmut Föll, Jan Van Hoeymissen, Luca de Stefano, Ennio Tasciotti and Nico Voelcker.

One particularly poignant lecture was the memo‐rial talk on the career of Ulrich Gösele, who unex‐pectedly passed away on November 8th 2009. As his long term friend and colleague Professor Föll com‐mented “Prof. Dr. Ulrich Gösele has made lasting contributions to science and enriched the pro‐fessional and private lives of many people. He will be missed and remembered as an outstanding scientist and a caring friend”.

Our oral presentations were grouped into the fol‐lowing technical sessions. The varied topics empha‐size the interdisciplinary nature of the scientific field covered by porous semiconductor R&D:

Nanowires and nanotubes

Pore initiation control and patterning

Metal‐assisted etching and deposition

Magnetic nanocomposites

MEMS and advanced electronics

Luminescence and energy transfer

Photovoltaics

Mesoporous materials

Multilayers and photonics

Microphotonic sensors

Chemical and biomolecule sensing

Biological interfaces and nanocomposites

Porous silicon “in‐vitro and in‐vivo”

Drug delivery

Thermal and acoustic properties

Advanced characterization

Microfluidics and microfiltration

Semiconductor anodization

Stain etching

The two poster sessions, with more than 100 contributions, were once again very well attended and the focus of lively discussion and debate.

Social Programme

The conference venue and time coincided inten‐tionally with the world famous “Las Fallas” – a remarkable week of celebrations and spectacular firework displays throughout the city of Valencia. Our conference dinner and excursion to the Las Fallas finale completed a very successful and enjoyable week.

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In addition to the above awards, Semitool Inc. once again sponsored grant awards to the following PhD students:

Enrique Garralaga Rojas, IFS, Germany

Meifang Lai, University of W. Australia

Luo Gu, UCSD, USA

Fengxia Liang, University of Hong Kong

Judson Ryckman, Vanderbilt University, USA

Quenti Van Overmeere, UCL, Belgium

Acknowledgements

For the seventh time, we are once again heavily indebted to the Valencian team of organizers led by Eugenia Matveeva with great support from Yuri Ma‐koshok and Maria Carmen Roca Saiz (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)