PURPOSE

The first experiment to identify the anisotropic decay of the muon was performed by Garwin et al. in 1957, thereby laying the groundwork for future applications of the µSR technique. Applications of µSR to the investigation of materials followed soon after in American, Russian and European laboratories, but the rapid development of µSR as a tool for chemistry and solid state physics research began with the construction of three "meson factories" in the early 1970s. Since that time, thriving µSR communities have been developed around the facilities at the Paul Scherrer Institut (Villigen, Switzerland), TRIUMF (Vancouver, Canada), KEK (Tsukuba, Japan) and ISIS (Oxford, UK). During the last decade µSR has become recognized as an established local probe in condensed matter physics and chemistry. Three out of four of the world's muon facilities also provide spallation neutron beams, exploiting the close synergy between µSR and neutron scattering. Recent technological achievements in the µSR field have included the development of ultra-low background, high-statistics pulsed muon beams and spectrometers, fast timing spectrometers for high applied magnetic fields, and ultra low-energy muon beams for near surface and thin film studies.

The International Society for µSR Spectroscopy was formed to take advantage of this growth by providing a forum to facilitate communication between practitioners of µSR and between the µSR community and other related fields and government agencies. The main goal of the Society is to promote and broaden the worldwide use of µSR in science and technology.

The Constitution of the ISMS provides the following objectives:

Identify and bring together the µSR community on all continents.
Promote the scientific exchange of ideas in the field of µSR spectroscopy through international conferences, meetings and internet communications.
Cultivate relations with other Societies in related disciplines.
Provide a central voice for the µSR community with respect to government and other funding agencies, international scientific organizations and other bodies of relevance, and provide advice to these funding agencies, societies etc.
Identify the needs of the µSR community, including future requirements for instrumentation and sources and optimal access to these sources, and to present these needs to the institutions operating µSR facilities.
Carry out educational activities and stimulate, promote and broaden the knowledge and use of µSR spectroscopy by organizing schools, workshops, courses and seminars.
Promote young scientists in the field of µSR spectroscopy and provide a Young Scientist Award for outstanding work in the field of µSR spectroscopy. In exceptional cases a Senior Scientist Award may also be given.