Over the past few years, there has been a significant growth of interest in both fundamental research and device applications based on transparent conductive materials (TCMs). This class of wide-bandgap materials is finding its way into a variety of cutting-edge applications in various fields, including solar cells, gas sensors, electrochromic materials, thermochromic materials and smart windows, and in architectural coatings as well as in organic light-emitting diodes, liquid-crystal and high-definition displays, all of which are regarded as the main candidates for the forthcoming “post-Si” electronics era.

Driven by worldwide research activities that range from fundamental physics to materials fabrication and TCM-based device development, the International Board Members of the TCM symposium (formerly TCO), following the success of the TCO2006, TCO2008, and TCM2010 conferences, have decided to organize the 4th International Symposium on Transparent Conductive Materials (TCM2012), to be held at the same location in Crete on October 21–25, 2012.

The TCM2012 organizing committee members are George Kiriakidis of the In stitute of Electronic Structure and Laser/Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas (FORTH) and University of Crete, Greece; Giorgio Sberveglieri of the National Research Council (CNR) and University of Brescia, Italy; Yuzo Shigesato of Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan; David Ginley of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, United States; and Bernd Szyszka of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films, Germany.

The symposium is endorsed by the Materials Research Society and the European Materials Research Society.