X-ray reflectivity schools in Japan and France

There appears to be increasing demand for learning analytical techniques for surfaces and interfaces. In Japan, the 2^nd tutorial course on the analysis of thin films and multilayers by X-ray reflectivity was held on March 26. Although a similar school was run only 4 months earlier, an additional 50 young participants came to Tsukuba for the course. In France, the 3^rd school was held at Giens on May 4-8. The organizers were Professors A. Gibaud (Université du. Maine), R. Lazzari (Institut des NanoSciences de Paris) and J. Daillant (Institut Rayonnement Matière de Saclay). Of particular note is that SAXS, GI-SAXS and In-plane XRD have been newly included in the program, in addition to ordinary X-ray reflectivity. Further information is available at http://www.nims.go.jp/xray/ref/ (in Japanese only) and http://www.univ-lemans.fr/~gibaud/ecoledegiens/ (in French only), respectively