The ISNTE-II was held between the 12th and 15th of December, 2017 at Tokyo Tech’s Suzukake Hall. The aim of the ISNTE is to bring together researchers from around the world who are working on negative thermal expansion materials, fostering a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that facilitate material function, improvement of material performance and accelerating the search for new materials and their application in society. The first symposium was organized by the University of Science and Technology, Beijing in 2015. ISNTE-II, the second, was organized by the Laboratory for Materials and Structures, a part of the WRHI program at Tokyo Tech, and Nagoya University.

Over the four-day conference, there were twenty-seven invited talks delivered by the leading researchers in the field, in addition to twenty-eight poster presentations. The topics covered were Open Framework Materials (8 talks), Ruthenates (2 talks), Charge/Orbital Ordering (3 talks), Magnetic Materials (4 talks), Fundamental Physics (3 talks), Advanced Measurement (5 talks) and finally a Review Session consisting of two plenary talks. Researchers representing a variety of backgrounds from all over the world discussed the present situation and possible future directions of research in the NTE field.

The twenty-eight presentations from graduate students and postdocs were grouped into Open-Framework and Other NTE/ZTE Materials (8 posters), Charge/Orbital-Order and Related Materials (12 posters) and Magnetic Materials (8 posters). Two gold, three silver and three bronze poster awards were presented to students who delivered the best presentations, as chosen through a vote by the invited speakers. Awards were presented by Prof. J. S. O. Evans from Durham University, the keynote speaker who is also well known as the inventor of the typical NTE material ZrW2O8.

ISNTE-II was attended by many presenters and participants representing industry as well. The exhibitions of commercial NTE materials also garnered much attention and provided a stimulating complement to the theoretical presentations. A banquet was held on the third night, with a speech delivered by Prof. X. R. Xing, who was the executive organizer for the first ISNTE. Sixty-one researchers from academia and industry took part in the scientific and cultural exchange.