The main problem in nanotechnology is the lack of methods for mass production. This is especially true for SMEs, which do not have the ability to invest in expensive equipment for large-scale production of nanostructures. Nanoimprint lithography on the other hand provides a tool that is comparably cheap and suited for mass production. 3D NANOPRINT aims at the development of a complete process technology with the necessary tools to produce 3-dimensional nanostructures with ultra high precision. In comparison to deep or extreme ultra violet lithography (abbreviated as DUV and EUV lithography respectively) this research paves the way for the widespread use of a nanoscale production technology also by smaller companies, since the investment costs of nanoimprint production lines are less than 1% of the DUV or EUV investments. The project consist of two levels, a directly process oriented part dealing with nanoimprint lithography itself, nanoimprint resists, reactive ion etching and alignment problems and an application oriented part. In this part requirements for nanoimprint lithography as production tool are defined, assuring that the final result of the project is a cost effective, high throughput, ultra-precise tool for the production of 3 dimensional nanostructures. As a reference application 3-dimensional photonic crystals have been chosen, since the optical properties of such devices are extremely sensitive to the quality of the production process (therefore are excellent indicators) and assure a high economic impact since the photonics market is growing quickly. Other applications considered are micro- and nano-optical devices.

ACAPOLY is a partnership between micro resist technology GmbH and EPFL-LMIS1 whose main objective is the development of a new set of polymer materials for MEMS/NEMS technologies with an associated process library. The materials that the partnership has planned to develop are Ormocer and SU-8. The objective is to modify both materials in a way that they can be processed using Electron Beam Lithography, Direct Laser Writing, UV-Nano Imprint Lithography and Ink-Jet printing. The developed materials and process libraries will be used to fabricate UV-NIL stamps, large arrays of LEDs for automobiles and large arrays of optical waveguides.

The impact of biomineralization processes on lithographic and microelectronic production processes has not yet been explored. As opposed to conventional industrial manufacturing, the biological synthesis of silica occurs under mild physiological conditions of low temperatures and pressures, with clear advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness, parallel production, and impact on the environment. The integration of nature-mimic biomineralization processes with micro- and nanofabrication will be a unique route to make them usable in the medium-long term for industrial application and production. In particular, some peculiar proteins of sponges (silicateins) catalyze the reaction of silica polymerization to give ordered structures. Besides this catalytic activity, when the proteins are assembled into mesoscopic filaments, they serve as scaffolds that spatially direct the synthesis of polysiloxanes over the surface of the protein filaments. Hence, these biomolecules present the combined characteristics of: (i) chemical action (catalysis) for the formation of silica, and (ii) patterning action, by driving the silica on the surface of the filaments. We plan to exploit this unique combination within a novel technology, whose demonstrator will be the realization of patterned, aligned assembly of silica fibers, and their employment as insulating layers for prototype transistor devices. Two parallel strategies will be pursued for the production of large amounts of silicatein: (i) expression of the recombinant proteins, and (ii) development of in vitro primmorph cultures. Soft lithography techniques will be used for the controlled patterned deposition of molecules. Specific approaches will be designed and implemented, for the hierarchical assembly of silicatein fibers into functional networks. The multidisciplinary team involved in this project has the know-how in biosilicification/lithography and the intellectual property rights in enzymatic silica formation.

Carbon nanotubes have many unique and extreme physical properties for this reason they will playa key role in the next future of society. Many governments allover the world are investing great resources in nanotechnologies research activities. The reason is the great performances of nanostructured materials and the large variety of applications of these technologies. The objective of this proposal is to realize a new machinery based on a cheap technological procedure, the Channel Spark Ablation (CSA), to produce high quality single walled carbon nanotubes which should yield the same quality as laser ablation, but at much lower costs. The nanotubes produced by this equipment will be used as passive electronic elements into innovative solar cells and dye sensitised solar cells. The major innovation of the proposal IS the idea to adopt an innovative technology to provide single-walled nanotubes at first on the kilogram scale and ultimately on a tonne scale. The.CSA is a system based on the pulsed electron-beam generation from the glow-discharge plasma environment. The applicability of the CSA to nanotubes preparation relies on the high effective temperatures that can be reached at the target surface and on its similarities to Pulsed Laser Ablation. It is clear that the development of sophisticated equipment and its further adjustment required for different materials utilisation can not be tackled by an only company. The contribution of the RTD performers will be essential to avail the indispensable know-how and resources to overcome the theoretical and technical problems and so to get the final positive result. The economical reason of the trans-national cooperation is given by the great industrial interest, allover the Europe, for this new, promising technique for nanotubes mass production. Actually the most important limitation of the nanostructured materials is due to the high production cost mainly due to high energy consumption and low process pro

The study of living matter has to be considered as an exciting and substantive

Coherent extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light sources open up new opportunities for science and technology. Promising examples are attosecond metrology, spectroscopic and structural analysis of matter on a nanometer scale, high resolution XUV-microscopy and lithography. The most promising technique for table-top sources is femtosecond laser-driven high-harmonic generation (HHG) in gases. Unfortunately, their XUV photon flux is not sufficient for most applications. This is caused by the low average power of the kHz repetition rate driving lasers (<10 W) and the poor conversion efficiency (<10-6). Following the traditional path of increasing the power, numerous research teams are engineering larger and more complex femtosecond high-power amplifier systems, which are supposed to provide several kilowatts of average power in the next decade. However, it is questionable if such systems can easily serve as tool for further scientific studies with XUV light.

The superlative properties of diamond make it a choice material for making nanoscale devices over a broad range of applications. Diamond devices are conventionally made using 'top-down' processing following the seeding and growth of nanocrystalline diamond thin films, however, due to the great resilience of diamond, fabricating nanoscale devices is technologically demanding and nanoscale patterning requires expensive and lengthy processing such as electron beam lithography (EBL). Herein, the applicant presents a proposal to develop a novel, inexpensive, rapid and scalable methodology to fabricate nanoscale devices using 'bottom-up' processing with a feature resolution that will surpass current state-of-the-art processing techniques such as EBL. To achieve this goal, the technique of DNA Nanotechnology will be used to create self-assembled 2D DNA patterns of any desired shape, which will subsequently be electrostatically and covalently coated with nanodiamond and diamondoid particles. Following diamond seeding on DNA templates, the applicant proposes to grow nanocrystalline diamond thin film devices with nanoscale features. Given the diameter of DNA is ca. 2 nm, structures with nearly 2 nm feature resolution should be achievable, especially when seeding the structures with molecular diamondoid particles. Following development of said technique, nanoscale diamond devices (specifically nanophotonic structures, transistors and biosensors) will be fabricated that promise unprecedented performance.

Carbon nanotubes grown by chemical vapour deposition or carbon arc method are fairly cheap but contain a considerable amount of defects and therefore the electrical and mechanical properties are far below their theoretical limits. In the laser ablation technique, nanotubes are produced under much better control of carrier gas flow and thermal gradients, but throughput is low and lasers are expensive. In channel spark ablation thermal gradients and gas flow are similar, but the process is much cheaper. The Arc-Jet method improves the flow conditions in the carbon arc (Kraetschmer) generator by injecting the carrier gas through a nozzle into the electric arc. The consortium will set up generators for channel spark ablation (Bologna), laser ablation (Stuttgart), and Arc-Jet production (Shanghai) and compare the products from these methods. To this end procedures for quality control and quality standardisation will be developed. These methods are based on optical and Raman spectroscopy, X- ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric analysis, as well as on mechanical investigations and electrical and thermal transport measurements (on pressed pellets, entangled films, and composites). The Austrian company AT&S Austria Systemtechnik AG is one of the largest producers of printed circuit boards. There is a general tendency to make these boards 'smarter' and to transfer passive electronic elements (resistors and capacitors) from the chips to the boards. AT&S envisages to use the nanotubes produced in this project for electronic elements integrated into their boards. AT&S has just started a subsidiary in China so that both the Chinese daughter and the European mother are likely to benefit from this project. The present project will produce high quality nanotubes at much larger quantities than presently available and at prices which are more than two orders of magnitude lower. We expect this to lead to a considerable breakthrough in #

The project 'Development of Lithography Technology for Nanoscale Structuring of Materials Using Laser Beam Interference (DELILA)' focuses on researching and developing a new production technology for fabrication of nano structures and devices. In particular, DELILA will enable low cost and large volume production of surface structures and patterns with nanometric resolution. Industrial end-users are currently discouraged from expanding their nanotechnology-related business activities by either unacceptably high costs or the impossibility to control production processes on a nanometric scale. DELILA will play a key role in realising the full potential of laser interference lithography as current nanofabrication tools are limited to archaic, slow processing rates, or do not achieve a competitive cost-effective strategy. DELILA is driven by industrial needs to down-scale feature sizes to nano dimensions, lower fabrication costs and efficiently increase throughput, with the following industrial and scientific objectives: (1)Fundamental exploration of multiple beam interference lithography and its capabilities; (2)Development of computer software for the analysis of interference of several coherent beams of laser radiation and for the calculation of the results of diffraction of the radiation by periodic structures of different forms; (3) Development of DELILA system. The main outcome of the project will be a nano fabrication tool that has the potential to create a breakthrough in nanolithography technology for both 2D and 3D structuring of materials. It is the aim of DELILA to empower interference nanolithography technology with a clear focus on industrial use. The main advantageous features of the DELILA system in fabrication of nano structures and devices are high resolution (better than 40 nm) compared with other optical technologies, and low cost and high efficiency compared with other beam technologies.

Dramatic progress has recently been made in the development and convergence of communication and computing technologies. Increasing numbers of networked consumer goods and remote electronic services requiring instant bandwidth are adding a huge burden to existing electronic infrastructure. While optical technologies are being deployed in increasingly diverse information systems, making a major impact on the use of ethernet networks, switching and routing functions remain in the electronic domain. This results in major bottlenecks, and while photonic integrated circuits have the promise to process ultrahigh speed data, stringent cost, power and space constraints have so far prevented deployment.TERABIT CHIPS provides a route map to high capacity active integrated photonic circuits using cutting edge fabrication solutions, advanced photonic design concepts, and sub-system architectures by exploiting parallel processing concepts. While the size of photonic circuits may be constrained by the wavelength of light, interaction lengths for electrooptic phenomena and limits to lithography, exploiting parallelism through wavelength multiplexing within the photonic circuit is identified as a highly efficient way to unleash a potential multiterabit capacity without prohibitive space, management or power overheads. This work proposes the multiwavelength components to realise such circuits.This proposal targets fast nanosecond reconfigurable routers for data traffic as the demonstration technology for prototyping high functionality high capacity integrated circuits. The designs will be deployed to ensure near digital operation with minimal signal impairment. Prototypes will be fabricated and demonstrated for broadband loss-free transmission, and nanosecond scale network reconfiguration times. The technology will exploit cutting edge fabrication, being compatible with off the shelf hardware, linking in to existing physical layer standards.