On November 12th, Professor Alicia Durán, the president of International Commission on Glass, paid a visit to SIOM and delivered a presentation entitled “Transparent oxyfluoride nano-glass ceramics. Changing the processing to reach new applications”. Chaired by Prof. HU lili, this presentation was warmly welcomed by young researchers and graduate students. 
    At the beginning of the seminar, Prof. Alicia Durán gave a brief introduction of ICG, concerning its development, mission, objectives, composition, structure and activities. She encouraged students to actively participate in summer and winter schools organized by ICG. In the report, she introduced transparent oxyfluoride glass-ceramics (OxFGCs). Nowadays, one of the most interesting fields of research is focused on the development of optical devices based on rare earth ions doped materials for their use in telecommunication systems. Oxifluoride GC combine the good mechanical properties of oxide matrices with the low phonon energy of fluoride crystals. She showed the results, obtained in the last ten years, for bulk, optical fibers and thin films produced by melt-quenching, sol-gel and fibering. In particular, the relationship between processing, structure and improved optical properties were discussed, focusing on the superior optical properties of these materials as compared to the precursor glasses. 
    Fllowing the seminar, Professor Alicia Durán visited the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics and the ShenGuang-II laser facility. 
    Alicia Durán is a research professor at CSIC (Spanish Research Council). She is the head of the Research Group Glass at the Institute of Ceramic and Glass (CSIC), and the president of the International Commission on Glass (ICG). Her research topics are glasses and glass-ceramics produced by melting and sol-gel, covering oxyfluoride transparent glass-ceramics, glass sealings, nitride phosphates, sol-gel coatings for corrosion protection of metals, photocatalytic films, hydrophobic/hydrophilic films and energy saving in glass furnaces. More than 220 papers were published in WOK, H INDEX: 40.