Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group Conference 2013 (EMAG2013)

It has once again been my pleasure to act as editor for these proceedings, and I must thank all those who have acted as reviewers. I am always struck by the scientific quality of the oral and poster contributions and the vibrant discussions that occur both in the formal sessions and in the exhibition space at EMAG. I am convinced that a crucial part of maintaining that scientific quality is the opportunity that is offered of having a paper fully reviewed by two internationally selected referees and published in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series. For many students, this is the first fully reviewed paper they publish. I hope that, like me, you will be struck by the scientific quality of the 80 papers that follow, and that you will find them interesting and informative.

I must also personally thank all the organisers of EMAG2013 for arranging such an excellent meeting. Ian MacLaren, as Chair of the EMAG Group and of the meeting itself, has contributed a foreword to these proceedings describing the meeting in more detail. A particular highlight of the conference was the special symposium in honour of Professor Archie Howie. We all enjoyed a wonderful speech from Archie at the conference dinner, along with some of his electron microscopy-related poetry. I have great pleasure in publishing the conference dinner poems in this proceedings.

I hope you will find these proceedings to be an interesting read and an invaluable resource.

Pete Nellist

Conference chair: Dr I MacLaren Programme organiser: Dr C Ducati Proceedings editor: Prof P D Nellist Trade exhibition organiser: C Hockey (CEM Group) Local organisers: Professor E Boyes, Professor P Gai, Dr R Kröger, Dr V Lazarov, Dr P O'Toole, Dr S Tear and Professor J Yuan Advanced school organisers: Dr S Haigh, Dr A Brown Other committee members: Mr K Meade, Mr O Heyning, Dr M Crawford, Mr M Dixon and Dr Z Li