The SPS Annual Meeting 2006 in Lausanne

Following the tradition of Neuchâtel in 2004, the annual meeting of the SPS served as a platform for the three physics based NCCRs in Switzerland: MaNEP, Quantum Photonics and Nanoscale Sciences. During the plenary session on Monday afternoon, the NCCRs were presented in terms of overview contributions. Additionally Prof. André Rubbia presented the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics CHIPP, founded in 2003.

The contributions of these four swiss science networks gave a weight to the SPS meeting. We will try to keep momentum for every other year. The years in between will become also more topical, presenting those fields that are not covered by the NCCRs.

The interlace-session of the NCCRs gave a wide overview and therefore was very well attended. Overall, nearly 500 participants joined the meeting, which again surpassed our expectations.

Besides the traditional sessions ANDO and TASK, the meeting offered an industrial physics session on Biophysics and Industry. Another big success was the session on Magnetism and Spintronics on the Nanoscale. The excellent selection of invited speakers, as well as the elaborate PR for this event helped to attract a big audience. The Plasma Physics Session was also very well visited, given that the CRPP was "at home" in Lausanne.

The prize ceremony was held during the plenary session by Prof. Piero Martinoli who also chaired the prize committee. The work packages selected for the prizes were all of excellent scientific qua­lity and the short presentations given by the prize winners were very interesting.

The meeting organizers were disappointed about the participation of the high school physics tea­chers who were all invited to join the Teacher’s afternoon. The program, designed after a proposi­tion of physics teachers themselves was quite attractive. Representatives from CERN, Verkehrshaus, Technorama, Kindercity, PSI and NCCR Nano were invited to present their special offers for school excursions. With only 6 registrations there would have been more speakers than audience, so we had to cancel the session.

With more than 120 participants the conference dinner had again more attendees than the dinners during the last few years. After a movie presentation, Christophe Rossel had the after dinner talk on the swiss achievements during the World Year of Physics.

Last but not least, the corridor discussions on such meetings are a very important platform for sci­entific and friendly exchange of ideas. I heard many people talking about the increasing quality of the presentations at SPS meetings. We hope that we will succeed in keeping the momentum to steadily increase both the scientific and the presentation quality of the SPS meetings in order to make these meetings more attractive to the physics community of Switzerland.

Prof. Jürg Osterwalder accepted to host the SPS meeting at the University of Zürich 20th to 21st February 2007. We are thankful and we are sure that this meeting will also be very successful.


Tibor Gyalog