The components of microelectro mechanical systems have very high surface to volume ratio. The forces applied to such systems are quite low making surface forces to play a dominant role. However, as the sizes of such systems are quite low, the contact pressure is estimated to be few hundred MPa. Such forces cause undesirable effects such as stiction and high friction leading to reduction of operational reliability. The main objective of the proposal is to enhance the performances of MEMS by applying self-lubricating film on the surfaces, which are sliding against each other’s. In order to achieve the above mentioned objective, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD), and DLC will be deposited on Si, steel and glass substrate. Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique and magnetron sputtering (MS) technique will be employed for that purpose. Metal containing TMD and DLC will also be deposited on similar substrates. The mechanical properties of these films will be determined using, nanoindenter. These films will be characterized with the help of TEM, XPS, and FTIR etc. The micro tribological properties will be evaluated using a micritribometer. The nanotribological properties will be examines with the help of an, AFM equipped with a nanoindenter and a nanoscratch tester. These evaluations will be carried out in controlled environment and in corrosive environment. The friction force surfaces, topography induced friction surface and adhesion induced friction surfaces will be obtained under various conditions. Attempt will be made to identify and characterize presence of transfer layer. The mechanism of friction disipation will also be examined.

The self-assembly method of organizing water-insoluble molecules on water surfaces into Langmuir films is a common way to fabricate ordered monolayers. However, the 2D crystalline films formed on the water are composed of many grains all lying on the same face, but oriented randomly azimuthally into and quot;2D powders and quot;. The crystallites have a diameter that ranges typically between 100-1500Ã…. Controlling the alignment and size of the growing 2D crystalline grains is the aim of this proposal. Ultimately, this would require grazing incidence X-ray diffraction techniques using synchrotron light and nonlinear optical techniques to detect and characterize the aligned crystalline mono- (or multi-) layers on the liquid surfaces. Due to its interdisciplinary character, the outcome of the project will be relevant to fields in physics, chemistry and biology. From a physics point of view, the development of nonlinear optical methods to induce alignment of molecules on the water surface is a direct continuation to problems in the coherent control domain, which in the field of molecule-alignment has been focused to date in the gas phase. The challenge is in the design of amphiphilic systems that will form aligned 2D crystals via the laser field and their detection. The success of the project will allow the preparation of significantly large 2D crystals and so provide a template for addressing questions in 2D-physics, interface physics, and chemistry and biology that occur at organic interfaces. In addition, it will provide new routes for the preparation of functional materials, especially in the nano-scale, which is of central interest in molecular electronics. In addition, it may be possible to fabricate new organic 2 and 3D multilayer crystals empoloying Langmuir-Blodgett methods. Finally, it may prove possible by this method to form large 2D crystals of membranal proteins that are very difficult to obtain as 3D crystals.

Based on the work so far an exciting new area would involve PFS-b-PP (PP = polyphosphazene) block copolymers. These materials would possess a highly tunable inorganic PP coblock which is superficially reminiscent of PDMS. However, the PP block is inherently much more tunable allowing hydrophobic /hydrophilic or crystalline / amorphous or high Tg / low Tg substituents to be attached at will due to the subsitutive mode of synthesis form chlorinated PPs. This tunability, which far exceeds the that with polysiloxane blocks, will allow us to gain deep insight into the factors that facilitate self-assembly of block copolymers in solution and will also allow us to access stabilized nanomaterials for example by introducing crosslinking groups. The iron present in the PFS blocks will also help characterization as no staining agents are needed to visualize the PFS blocks using transmission electron microscopy.

CATHERINE will provide a new unconventional concept for local and chip-level interconnects that will bridge ICT beyond the limits of CMOS technology._x000d_

The science of nanoscale structures and processes is currently an area of enormous activity, attracting great cross-disciplinary interest from researchers worldwide. This rapidly developing field requires novel tools and techniques for nanoscale analysis. The atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM), for example, have developed in response to this requirement. Recent work has demonstrated the potential of SNOM techniques to enable nanoscale infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Such a capability would be of immense value in understanding chemical processes at the nanoscale, such as those driving the self-assembly of materials or modifying protein conformation. Progress towards true nanoscale IR spectroscopy is, however, badly hampered by the lack of suitable widely-tuneable IR laser sources. The proposed reintegration grant will provide valuable supplementary support to five-year fellowship project, recently awarded to the researcher. This project addresses the development of suitable tuneable sources, based on nonlinear optical frequency conversion techniques, and their application to IR SNOM for the first time, thus enabling effective spectroscopic analysis of nanoscale objects. Collaborative studies of nanostructured materials and biomaterials will both validate the techniques developed and address important issues in the study of these systems. It is anticipated that the final outcome of this project will be a novel analytical tool of great value to nanoscale research in chemistry, physics and the materials and life sciences.

Semiconductor materials form the basis of modern electronics, communication, data storage and computing technologies. One of today’s major challenges for the development of future technologies is the realization of devices that control not only the electron charge, as in present electronics, but also its spin, setting the basis for future spintronics. Spintronics represents the concept of the synergetic and multifunctional use of charge and spin dynamics of electrons, aiming to go beyond the traditional dichotomy of semiconductor electronics and magnetic storage technology. The most direct method to induce spin-polarized electrons into a semiconductor is by introducing appropriate transition metal dopants producing a dilute magnetic semiconductor (DMS). The seamless integration of future spintronic architectures into nanodevices would require the fabrication 1-D DMS nanostructures in well defined architectures. In this project we propose to use a simple low-cost, low-temperature electrodeposition process to not only synthesise and characterise ZnO based bipolar DMS nanowire heterostructures but, even more importantly, fabricate an array of p-n and n-p-n junctions which could lead to novel nano-spintronic devices within ordered pre-defined nano-architectures. We will study the structural and functional properties of these heterostructures, which could have applications such as spin polarised LED and spin polarised bipolar junction transistor. By fully exploring the parameters controlling the growth and functionality of these materials we will try to gain a holistic understanding of the processing/structure/property relationships for this system. The ultimate goal of this project is to be able to design and fabricate specific nanowire heterostructures with tuneable magnetic and electrical properties which could lead to practical spintronic applications. Moreover this approach is inherently clean and scalable and easily integrated within current industrial practice.

The aim of this project is to develop high density defect-free ultra-thin sealing coatings with excellent barrier properties and improved corrosion resistance. Their successful functioning will be provided by the synergy of the coating “perfect” morphology and its complex structural design, which can be tailored at the nanoscale. The study will be focused on development of novel nanostructured coating systems, such as nanoscale multilayers, mixed and composite coatings. These impermeable sealing layers must be able to block the ion exchange between the substrate material and an aggressive environment, thus offering an efficient protection against corrosion over a long term. The coatings will be deposited by four alternative vapour deposition techniques, Filtered Cathodic Arc Deposition (FCAD), High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HIPIMS), Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and Plasma Enhanced Atomic layer Deposition (PEALD)). These techniques possess a unique advantage offering the deposition of highly conformal and uniform films of high density, free of defects. The technological objective of the project is to demonstrate the feasibility of corrosion protection by FCAD, HIPIMS and ALD techniques on an industrial scale. To fulfil this objective, a complete industrial process for the multi-stage surface treatment, including cleaning, pre-treatment, coating deposition, must be defined. All techniques will be evaluated in terms of technical effectiveness, production costs, environmental impact and safety, and the most suitable technique(s) will be selected for further development on a large scale for the applications in some targeted industrial sectors. The applications, tested within this project, concern high precision mechanical parts (bearings), aerospace components (break systems) and gas handling components. The coating application in the decorative and biomedical domains will be assessed.

The proposed research aims at developing a toolbox for direct self-assembly of nano-colloids. Different methods to drive and modulate self-assembly in nano-colloids will be developed, compared and evaluated. The toolbox will consist of the following elements : (i) Building blocks: model particles with varying shape, functionality and directional interactions will be synthesized (ii) Directing Tools : Electric and Flow fields, surfaces and interfaces (iii) Test and development methods : Experimental platforms adapted at nano-particle research and simulations methods, capable of dealing with a range of length scales. The proposal specifically aims to study these methods which are prone to scale-up The research consortium consists of leading groups in the filed of colloid science and engineering and soft matter research. The seeds of this toolbox are clearly present in the consortium including methods for production of model (field responsive) nanoparticles, unique experimental tools, theoretical skills and mesoscale simulation methods. The key idea is to gradually evolve in the research to be able to deal with smaller length scales and a wider range of directing fields .

Recent developments in the design and synthesis of nanoscale building blocks as active elements in opto- or bio-electronic devices with tailored electronic functionality have the potential to open up new horizons in nanoscience and also revolutionise multi-billion dollar markets across multiple technology sectors including healthcare, printable electronics, and security. Ligand-stabilised inorganic nanocrystals (~2-30 nm core diameters) and functional organic molecules are attractive building blocks due to their size dependent opto-electronic properties, the availability of low-cost synthesis processes and the potential for formation of ordered structures via (bio) molecular recognition and self-assembly. Harnessing the complementary properties of both nanocrystals and functional molecules thus represents a unique opportunity for generation of new knowledge and development of new classes of high knowledge-content materials with specific functionality tailored for key applications, e.g., printable electronics, biosensing or energy conversion in the medium term, and radically new information and signal processing paradigms in the long term. Self-assembly and self-organisation processes offer the potential to achieve dimensional control of novel multifunctional materials at length scales not accessible to conventional “top-down” technologies based on lithography. It is critical for European industry to develop new knowledge and low-cost, scaleable processes for assembly and electrical interfacing of these multifunctional materials with conventional contact electrodes in order to produce into tailored devices and products, in particular on low-cost substrates. The FUNMOL consortium will deliver substantial innovation to European industry via development of cost-effective, scaleable processes for directed assembly of high-knowledge content nanocrystal-molecule materials into electrically-interfaced devices at silicon oxide, glass and plastic substrates.

Atmospheric plasma techniques as processing methods have a number of advantages which include their ability to tailor the surface chemistry at the nanometre level. As such, the plasma treatments are energy efficient, reproducible and environmentally clean. In-line, continuous reel-to-reel processing equipment has been developed in the last 5 years. The wide scale application of this nano-processing technology in the pre-treatment of packaging materials in reel-to-reel processing has however been severely limited. One of the main reasons for this is the relatively slow processing velocity for coating depositions. In general, the velocities need to be increased by 2-5 fold in order to fully exploit the new nano-processing techniques. This proposal will address these issues in order to assist in the transfer of atmospheric plasma processing technology from the laboratory scale to industrial level in the packaging industry. Special attention will go out to the very promising combination with sol-gel technology. A method and equipment for in-line plasma deposition of high-barrier bio-based coatings to be applied in conjunction with extrusion coating at industrial line speeds will be developed. The approach will exploit sol-gel coatings applied on the substrates by plasma deposition. The substrates include paper, cardboard and plastic films. Renewable, biobased and biodegradable materials will be used as extrusion coatings. The project aims at replacement of fluoropolymer based grease barrier materials with sol-gel coated bioplastics and substitution of non-renewable barrier packaging films with renewables based materials in general. To achive these objectives, several leading European institutes and universities in atmospheric plasma deposition technology (VITO and TUE), sol-gel development (FhG-ISC and VTT) and extrusion coating and analytics development (TUT and JSI) together with a range of industrial participants are incorporated in the proposal.