The growing importance of nanotechnology for the European Research Area is reflected in the FP6 Thematic Priorities. It is foreseen that most of the projects submitted to the Priority Area 3 (NMP) will need and develop nanopatterning techniques in one way or another. The Emerging Nanopatterning Methods (NaPa) consortium integrates the new patterning methods into one project, both anticipating and responding to the increasing need for technologies, standards and metrology required to harness the new application-relevant properties of engineered structures with nm-scale features. The NaPa consortium complements the deep UV technology by providing low-cost scalable processes and tools to cover the needs of nanopatterning from CMOS back-end processes through photonics to biotechnology. To achieve this, research in three technology strands is proposed: nanoimprint lithography, soft lithography & self-assembly and MEMS-based nanopatterning. While the former is at a crucial embryonic stage, requiring prompt consolidation to yield its first products in one or two years, the other two will result in applications towards the end of the project. Research in three overarching themes required by all strands: Materials, Tools and Simulation will be undertaken. NaPa brings together 35 leading academic and industrial European institutions with a vast amount of recent know-how on nanofabrication, partly developed within FP5. In total, 3500 person months will be contributed by the partners to the project. Complementing R&D, the consortium will design exciting nanoscience and nanoengineering courses to advance the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers and to create a positive attitude towards science among young people. Dissemination activities towards the lay public and sectors underrepresented in nanotechnology form an integral part in NaPa. Thus, NaPa offers a unique opportunity to unleash the potentials of #

The enormous potential of Biology in combination with Chemistry and Physics will lead to break-through advances in material science and to an abundant wealth of exploitable developments, Chemistry and Physics offer advanced tools for synthesis, characterization, theoretical understanding and manufacture of materials and devices, while Biology offer a window into the most sophisticated collection of functional nanostructures that exist. The inspiration searched in Nature will expand not only lo the use of the characteristics of the biological molecules but also to the clean, self-sustainable and efficient way that Nature produces such sophisticated molecules, The project of Biopolysurf aims at providing a platform for research and training In this multidisciplinary field. Biopolysurf is a RTN planned to facilitate the exchange of expertise and knowledge between top-notch groups coming from these three traditional disciplines as a way to achieve a privileged excellence in Nanobiotechnology and to establish a high quality training and truly multidisciplinary platform for young and experienced researches. Our main goal will be the engineering of advanced nanofunctionalized polymeric surfaces for smart systems in biomedicine, biology, material science and nanotechnology by assembling molecules and nano-objects into functional patterns. Biopolysurf is intended as an application-oriented research network. All the tools and knowledge developed within the network will be focused on marketable products. The aimed tasks are designed to be used in tissue engineering, drug (gene) delivery, nanobiotechnology, lab-on-a-chip systems and advanced smart materials and devices for agriculture, food packaging, cosmetics, etc. The interdisciplinary approach of Biopolysurf will establish a complete chain of knowledge: It ranges from innovative concepts for the design and the (bio) synthesis of novel materials to the fabrication of controlled (ordered) nanostructures via self-assembly.

Sugars and amino acids are natural building blocks which are used to form precisely regulated sequences in carbohydrates and proteins, respectively. While the field of proteomics has advanced immensely during the last past years, the field of glycomics is much less developed. The advance in synthetic polymer chemistry is allowing the possibility of controlling monomer sequences in synthetic macromolecules with diverse chemical structure providing many scientific and technological applications. 'SuprHApolymers' project aims to design and synthesize glycopolymers mimicking the composition and structure of hyaluronan (HA), a linear polysaccharide composed of repeating disaccharide units of N-acetyl-glucosamine (GlcNAc) and glucuronic acid (GlcUA), but with many important biological functions. Linear glycopolymers, made solely of GlcNAc or GlcUA sugars (homopolymers) or containing both sugars (copolymers) will be synthesized to study their interaction with synthetic peptides bearing HA-binding motifs (peptide library). The synthesis of HA-based glycopopymers with branched architecture will be also attempted to explore different polymer configurations and to create optimal interactions with peptides. The self-assembly of HA glycopolymers with peptide amphiphiles containing selected HA-binding sequences will be investigated to form de novo peptide-polymer hybrid supramolecular materials with different molecular and macroscopic properties. Finally, the formed functional assemblies (nanostructures and supramolecular gels or films) will be explored for applications in synthetic biology and biomedicine.

The proposal is built on the core idea to use an ensemble of multiple level self-organization processes to create a next generation photocatalytic platform that provides unprecedented property and reactivity control. As a main output, the project will yield a novel highly precise combined catalyst/photocatalyst assembly to: 1) provide a massive step ahead in photocatalytic applications such as direct solar hydrogen generation, pollution degradation (incl. CO2 decomposition), N2 fixation, or photocatalytic organic synthesis. It will drastically enhance efficiency and selectivity of photocatalytic reactions, and enable a high number of organic synthetic reactions to be carried out economically (and ecologically) via combined catalytic/photocatalytic pathways. Even more, it will establish an entirely new generation of '100% depoisoning', anti-aggregation catalysts with substantially enhanced catalyst life-time. For this, a series of self-assembly processes on the mesoscale will be used to create highly uniform arrays of single-catalyst-particle-in-a-single-TiO2-cavity; target is a 100% reliable placement of a single <10 nm particle in a 10 nm cavity. Thus catalytic features of, for example Pt nanoparticles, can ideally interact with the photocatalytic properties of a TiO2 cavity. The cavity will be optimized for optical and electronic properties by doping and band-gap engineering; the geometry will be tuned to the range of a few nm.. This nanoscopic design yields to a radical change in the controllability of length and time-scales (reactant, charge carrier and ionic transport in the substrate) in combined photocatalytic/catalytic reactions. It is of key importance that all nanoscale assembly principles used in this work are scalable and allow to create square meters of nanoscopically ordered catalyst surfaces. We target to demonstrate the feasibility of the implementation of the nanoscale principles in a prototype macroscopic reactor.

Functional nanomaterials are predicted to have an enormous impact on some of the most pressing issues of 21st century society, including next-generation health care and energy related technologies. Bottom-up approaches, using self-assembly principles, are increasingly considered to be the most appropriate routes for their synthesis. Indeed, Science magazine highlighted How far can we push chemical self-assembly? as one of the 25 biggest questions that face scientific inquiry over the next quarter century. Despite significant advances in recent years, it is still a major challenge to access precisely defined nano-structures in the laboratory, especially if these do not represent the global free energy minimum (i.e. are asymmetric, multifunctional, compartmentalized and/or dynamic). The biological world provides numerous outstanding examples of highly complex functional nano-scale architectures with attractive features such as defect repair, adaptability, molecular recognition and programmability. It is the objective of this ERC Starting Grant to develop and exploit the concept of (bio-)catalytic self-assembly, a bio-inspired approach for bottom-up synthesis of complex nanomaterials. We will explore three unique features of these systems (i) spatiotemporal control, (ii) catalytic amplification, either towards or away from equilibrium and the tempting vision of (iii) dynamic systems with emergent properties. In our approach we aim to encompass the entire spectrum from fundamental understanding to eventual societal benefit. Alongside the fundamental aims, we wish to put our methodologies to use, in collaboration with experts in these fields, to develop novel functional materials towards applications in next-generation biomaterials and gel-phase supramolecular (opto-) electronic materials.

The proposed research project aims to study

The EAgLE project aims at establishing at the Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences (IFPAN) a leading multiprofile research Centre for designing and fabricating new materials, their characterization and testing under extreme experimental conditions. The Centre will identify and select novel materials, structures, phenomena, and computational protocols for functional new-concept nanodevices.

This proposal plans a series of 5 events on Membrane Technology. Membranes have established applications in the food, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industry, water desalination, medical processes like hemodialysis and has gain an increasing relevance in the field of renewable energy.1. Conference ¿New Materials for Membranes¿ (to be organised by GKSS research centre in 2007). The idea is to integrate new advanced materials in the membrane technology, bringing new breakthroughs in the field. Three summer schools are planned with the character of training, enabling young scientists to benefit from the experience of leading researchers: 2. Summer School ¿Smart Materials¿ (to be organized by IMC/ICT Prague in 2006)will give an insight on fundamental aspects of membrane preparation using self-assembly, nanocomposites and other new materials for separation techniques and energy. 3. Summer School ¿Membranes for reactive processes¿ (to be organized by the University of Genoa 2007) will include membrane preparation, characterization and application in fuel cells and catalytic membrane reactors. 4. Summer School ¿Solvent resistant membranes¿ (to be organized by the Catholic University of Leuven in 2008) will focus on applications in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. 5. Workshop ¿Advances in Membrane Technology¿ (to be organized by GKSS in 2008)will focus on different aspects of membrane technology, presented mainly by highly qualified women scientists in the membrane field, stimulating the participation of young female students. The workshop will have a practical part with technical machines for membrane preparation and characterization, module manufacture, etc and will offer lectures on how to develop skills in communication, meeting moderation, project preparation.The coordination will be in charge of GKSS and will have a narrow interaction with the Network of Excellence NanoMemPro and the European Membrane Society for publicity and selection.

DNA Nanotechnology is an emerging interdisciplinary area that will underpin the development of future nanoscience-based technologies for areas such as medicine, diagnostic tools, optics and electronics. DNA nanotechnology is based on the unique self-assembly properties of DNA which allow the rational design and synthesis of complex nanoscale structures with predictable form and function. Many other materials can be integrated in such DNA structures to create highly functional nanodevices. The Marie Curie ITN EScoDNA will establish a sustainable European School of DNA Nanotechnology. By providing high quality training to young scientists, EScoDNA will improve their career prospects in both public and private sectors; it will also strengthen the competitive position of European research and industry in this promising strategic field. A network of leading European researchers, two SMEs and a major commercial research institute will work together to foster the development of a new generation of scientists with the skills required to meet future challenges in DNA nanotechnology, from fundamental science to novel applications. The training program will involve collaborative research projects, including international secondments and exchange of data through a web-based Lab-Wiki Journal, and through summer schools and workshops. The industrial partners will be integrated in the training programme, and the two SMEs will coordinate training related to the commercial exploitation of new technologies, management and entrepreneurial skills. They will also take a lead in managing the protection and commercialization of new technologies arising from research with the ITN. The programme is designed to create a pool of highly qualified researchers prepared for a wide range of careers in bionanotechnology and nanofabrication and, especially, capable of contributing to the development of a strong European centre for the scientific and commercial development of DNA nanotechnology.

I plan to grow nanometre-sized crystals in confined geometries to examine the strain distributions that result. The crystal growth will employ lithographic processing techniques, made possible by the local expertise in the central clean room facilities of the London Centre for Nanotechnology. My group is world-leading in developing a method called Coherent X-ray Diffraction (CXD). Our CXD strain images of a Pb nanocrystal were published in Nature in 2006. CXD is sensitive to strain because the X-ray diffraction pattern surrounding a Bragg peak can be decomposed into symmetric and antisymmetric parts. To a good approximation, the symmetric part can be considered to come from the real part of the electron density, while the antisymmetric part is a projection of the strain field. The phasing of the data is a critical step that uses a computer algorithm, developed by us, which acts like the lens of a 3D X-ray microscope. CXD works best for nanocrystal sizes between 40nm and 5µm, for crystals strongly attached to substrates and for isolated, fiducialised arrays of crystals that can be cross-referenced with other techniques. To create nanocrystals in this size range, we will use both a bottom-up self-assembly of materials deposited onto templated substrates, designed to introduce strain, and a top-down nanosculpture approach will use lithography techniques to create strain patterns in crystalline materials associated with shapes that are carved into them. The interpretation of the images is the main intellectual output of the project. This will be compared with finite element analysis, and the deviations interpreted as unique properties attributable to the nanoscale. All project participants will work in a design, creation, analysis, interpretation, update cycle that will reveal the new basic principles of nanocrystal structure. In the long run we will transfer CXD technology to Europe: beamline I-13 at Diamond will be ready for CXD in 2011.