International conference on Computer Simulation of Radiation Effects in Solids

The conference on Computer Simulation of Radiation Effects in Solids (COSIRES) is a regularly occurring international scientific conference for presenting and discussing recent achievements in the advanced computer modelling of surface and bulk phenomena stimulated by all forms of energetic particle (ion, neutron, electron, ...) irradiation. It is held biannually in different parts of the world, and has always attracted 100-120 attendees.

Scientific background

Radiation is omnipresent in nature, and utilized in numerous technological devices developed by man.

Cosmic rays penetrate the entire biosphere, and affect us e.g. in the form of breaking of chemical bonds in our body (a possible source for cancer) and by causing electric signals known as upset events in semiconductor components. Also, natural fission events occurring in minerals provide an important way for chronological dating of geologic samples via fission track dating.

Radiation occurs also in a wide variety of technological devices. Radiation damage is a serious problem in nuclear power plants, a problem that is estimated to be also significant in possible future fusion power plants. On the other hand, ion implantation is a key part of semiconductor device fabrication, and electron beams are routinely used for cancer treatment. In many cases the radiation effects are in fact beneficial, such as for defect engineering of semiconductors and sputtering-based secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis of materials. In electron microscopes, beam damage is one of the key issues limiting the reliability of the results.

Fundamental scientific understanding of radiation effects is often not accessible by experiments, since they occur on very small time and length scales. Due to the complex nature of radiation effects, the theoretical work in the field has for a long time relied on computer simulations. Vigorous development of both computer hardware and theoretical methodologies which has occurred in recent years has pushed the field into the forefront of a modern science. Both for the detrimental and beneficial effects, it is very important to have good scientific understanding of the radiation effects, and obtaining such understanding is The Primary aim of the COSIRES conference.

Topics covered

The COSIRES conference covers a wide range of topics, including the following.

Computational modeling of

• Ion- and plasma-induced physical and chemical effects at surfaces and interfaces
• Formation and evolution of radiation defects in metals, ceramics and carbon-based materials
• Doping of semiconductors using ion implantation and subsequent annealing
• Ion beam synthesis of nanostructures
• Formation of thin films by ion- and plasma-assisted deposition

ProgresS in the development of simulation techniques

• Ab-initio, atomistic, and mesoscopic methods, including density functional theory, molecular dynamics, binary collision approximation, discrete dislocation dynamics and kinetic Monte Carlo methods.
• Combination of different simulation methods, multi-scale computer simulation
• Development of simulation techniques for ion beam analysis

Proceedings

The proceedings of the conference have traditionally been published in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal Nuclear INSTRUMENTS and Methods in Physics Research B. The proceedings include volumes 102, 180, 202, 228, 255, 267 [issue 18], 269 [issue 14] in this journal.

COSIRES conferences held

The complete list of COSIRES conferences held up to 2013 is as follows.