Informational (electronics and photonics) and renewable energy (solar systems, fuel cells and batteries) technologies have reached a new stage in their development – engineering limits in cost effective improvement of current technological approaches. The latest miniaturization of electronic devices is approaching atomic dimensions, interconnect bottlenecks are limiting circuit speeds, new materials are being introduced into microelectronics manufacture at an unprecedented rate, and alternative technologies to mainstream CMOS are being considered. The low cost of natural energy sources and ignorance of the limits and environmental impact from use of natural carbon based fuels have been long standing economic barriers to the development of alternative and more efficient solar systems, fuel cells and batteries. Nanotechnology is widely accepted as a source of potential solutions in securing future progress in information and energy technologies.

The NGC2009 & CSTC2009 forum in Canada invites academic and industrial researchers to present tutorial, expository and original research papers dedicated to solving scientific and technological problems in electronics, photonics and renewable energy such as atomic scale materials design, bio- and molecular electronics, high frequency electronics, fabrication of nanodevices; magnetic materials and spintronics; materials and processes for integrated and subwave optoelectronics, nanoCMOS, new materials for FETs and other devices, nanoelectronics system architecture, nano optics and lasers, non-silicon materials and devices, quantum effects in devices, nano science and technology applications in development of novel solar energy devices, and fuel cells and batteries. We also invite inventors, entrepreneurs and business leaders to explore the unique opportunity provided by our interdisciplinary forum for technical due diligence and potential commercialization of emerging new technologies. Sponsors and exhibitors are welcome and will be supported by the organizers in their needs for networking and marketing of their products and organizations.

Hosted by McMaster University the NGC2009 & CSTC2009 meeting (NGC/CSTC 2009) will be held as a joint event of two conference series, Nano & Giga Challenges (Nano & Giga Forum) and Canadian Semiconductor Technology Conferences, and will bring together the networks and expertise of both professional forums. CSTC forum was established 25 years ago in Ottawa as an important symbol of the intrinsic strength of the Canadian semiconductor research and development community, and the Canadian semiconductor industry as a whole. In 2007, the 13th CSTC was held in Montreal, moving for the first time outside the national capital region.

The first three meetings in the series of Nano & Giga Challenges conferences, NGCM2002 in Moscow, NGCM2004 in Krakow, and NGC2007 in Phoenix, were focused on the interdisciplinary research in electronics and photonics from the fundamentals of materials science to the development of new system architectures. Our next joint forum expands its topics to renewable energy research and development based on semiconductor and other materials including organic and biomolecular systems. We believe that expertise exchange and transfer between electronics, photonics and renewable energy R & D will help in addressing challenges and finding breakthrough solutions in both areas vital for the progress of the human society – information and energy technologies.