MRS: The Growth Phase
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12,000
TOTAL MRS MEMBERSHIP 1973-1993
This contribution continues the MRS story, picking up from the early years, as described by Rustum Roy, and focusing on the period of rapid growth. My objective is to provide a brief summary of the history of the Materials Research Society up to the present time, as a part of our celebraS. Tom Picraux tion of the 20th anniversary of MRS. The first years of MRS can be referred to as the nucleation phase, as the principles of interdisciplinarity, focused symposia, and greater interaction among researchers became appreciated. The interactions which MRS fostered between disciplines,'between basic and applied scientists and engineers, and among researchers at universities', industry, and government labs soon began to attract more and more colleagues to this new Society and its meetings (see plot of MRS membership, 1973-1993, in Figure 1). The transition from the nucleation to the growth phase had its real beginnings in a number of highly successful symposia of the late 1970s, which attracted much excitement and many attendees. Perhaps two of the best examples are the symposia on Laser Annealing and The Scientific Basis of Nuclear Waste Management, both of which were first held in 1978. Both of these areas were truly "hot topics" and the MRS Meeting became the place to report one's latest results and to learn of new developments in these areas. Likewise, the proceedings of these symposia became the single best source for obtaining a perspective on these topics. These subjects served as excellent examples of the benefit of combining the perspectives of multiple disciplines, of fundamental and applied research, and of science and technology. For example, laser annealing led at the same time to fundamental aspects of liquid-solid phase transitions at speeds not previously considered, and to rapid thermal annealing for activating ion-implanted dopants in silicon, a process now routinely used in silicon-device manufacturing. As a result of such topical symposia's successes, the number of members between 1977 and 1979 jumped from approximately 300 to 1,000, with comparable numbers of attendees at the (then) "Annual" Meeting in Boston.
73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93
Year Figure I Growth of MRS membership. Open squares, are appro*i~ mats or estimated membership. Solid squares are end-of-year membership. The broken and solid line is to 0uide the eye.
These events of the late 1970s set the stage for the truly impressae growth of the 1980s, as seen in the accompanying membership plot. Between 1983 and 1990, MRS membership increased from less than 1,600 to over 10,000 members, with typical growth rates of about 30% in the middle 1980s. Concurrent with this growth in membership, the number of symposia rapidly expanded from about a dozen in the early 1980s to cover all the letters of the alphabet, and a Spring Meeting in the western United States was added in 1984 to relieve pressure on the Boston Fall Meeting. During this period, many additional topics gained widespread attention at the me
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