A gathering of professionals from academic and industrial research communities in the fields of materials, coatings and surfaces worldwide opened for an eight-day run in the coastal city of Busan on Monday.

The opening ceremony for the 20th International Vacuum Congress


(IVC-20) brought together about 1,000 people, including Busan Mayor Suh Byung-soo; Mariano Anderle, chief of the International Union for Vacuum Science Technique and Application; and Kang Hee-jae, head of the IVC-20 organizing committee.

IUVSTA, founded in 1958, is an academic group comprising about 20,000 physicists, chemists, material scientists, engineers and technicians in 33 countries.

The international vacuum congress is held every three years.

South Korea became the third Asian country to play host to the gathering following Japan and China.

During the event at the BEXCO exhibition center, participants from 49 countries are expected to announce a total of 1,389 theses, with 92 companies to showcase their products at 152 booths.

Leading speakers of the event include Erwin Neher, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in physiology, and Philip Kim, a condensed matter physicist known for the study of the new material graphene. (Yonhap)