Progress in materials science is made possible both by the development of novel materials with unusual properties and by the invention of new experimental techniques. Subsequently, the competitive investigation and successful exploitation of such new trends requires to mobilize and bring together in a short time joint research activities in several leading research institutions with complementary experience and equipment. In this way a wide experimental spectrum from materials preparation and analysis to modern methods and facilities for measurements can be combined to a fruitful collaboration for the advancement of materials which are of fundamental and technical importance.

This bilateral symposium has the purpose to extend and deepen the scientific exchange and collaboration between research institutions working in Germany and in Russia on the physics of materials science. It stands in the line of a number of previously organized bilateral symposia organized both in Russia and Germany. The following topics have been selected, because of their timeliness and international significance, and because of the already existing fruitful collaborations established during the past years:

A. Preparation and characterization of low dimensional materials and cluster matter
B. Transport properties of materials with strong coupling phenomena
C. Cooperative phenomena in strongly correlated systems with multicomponent order parameters

During 3 days of this symposium the state of the art and new perspectives in the field shall be presented, reviewed, and critically discussed for their relevance for future joint programs. The results of the collaboration during the last period shall be presented and critically reviewed. The symposium shall be followed by a seven day information visit to laboratories in the Dresden area, which have particular competence in any of the areas of collaboration and which like to present their experimental or theoretical capabilities for the bilateral cooperation.