Much world-wide effort is being devoted to research into nanoelectronic and nanophotonics devices, but less effort is being applied to examining system architectures, which might use these devices to best advantage. Such research is needed, so that present-day increases in computing power can be extended into the future. To achieve such increases will be a major technological challenge, and proactive research and planning is needed now. Some unanswered technical questions are: Can devices be assembled into ultra-high density circuits? Are any of these devices fundamentally unsuitable? Will factors such as size variations affect performance? Can manufacturing faults and transient errors be overcome using fault tolerance? Will the circuits have better performance than CMOS-type circuits? Will nanoscale circuits be cheaper than CMOS? Besides these technical questions, two other questions must also be asked: What systems research is being carried out now, and what gaps are there? - and are there enough trained people in Europe who are capable of solving these problems? Some but not all of these questions are being looked at under existing EC initiatives. We therefore propose a survey which, starting from the existing EC Nanoelectronics Roadmap, would report on existing European expertise in the following areas: 1. existing and proposed nanoelectronic/photonic devices 2. small circuits: theory and practice 3. ultralarge circuits: theory and practice 4. conventional architectural concepts 5. unconventional concepts 6. new concepts 7. known problems 8. 'system on a chip' and 3D systems 9. applications: performance requirements 10. availability and training of human resources The report will suggest topics where further effort might be applied, ranging from basic theoretical research, through device/circuit fabrication techniques, to possible training and research workshops. Information will also be provided on US and Pacific Rim activity.

The overall objective is to built up expertise in the field of material science related to deep submicron CMOS processing and to investigate the irradiation hardness of these technologies. This requires a clear understanding of different disciplines such as material characterization, defect studies, silicon processing, electrical device characterization and irradiation studies. Due to the large number of processing steps in CMOS technology it is essential to either remove the process-induced defects or at least drive them towards the inactive regions of the components. This control effort is called defect engineering and gettering. Beside the process-induced defects, additional defects can also be created during the device operation having direct consequences on the lifetime of the components. The space community is more and more using the Commercially-of-the-Self (COTS) approach. This means that instead of dedicated components, fabricated in hardened technologies, commercial parts fabricated in mainstream CMOS are used for space electronics. Increasing the lifetime of components will reduce the cost, save energy and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. A fundamental study of the nature and structure of such defects is thus necessary to advance in technological applications, in particular in the miniaturization of components. For the applicant it is a unique opportunity to work on state of the art research topics, for which there is world- wide large interest. The proposed research plan is covering a broad range of topics, combining activities on material science, silicon processing and irradiation physics. It also allows to build up expertise on how to conduct a large joint research program in an international environment. The training will not only be performed at a pure scientific level, but also at a higher level including social aspects such as team building, multi-racial and multicultural interactions, and managerial skills.

The objective of this project is to support the participation of outstanding young European researchers in the 7th

International Conference on Laser Ablation (COLA'03) and provide high-level training in a scientific area of

high current interest fostering the interaction between young scientists and internationally known experts in the

field.

COLA'03, to be held in Hersonissos, Crete, Greece (October 2003) is a major conference in the field of laser-

matter interactions, that focuses on fundamental studies and technological applications of laser ablation,

attracting scientidsts form both academia and industry. Laser ablation is a highly interdisciplinary field drawing

science and engineering. It plays a key role in current frontier topics, which are among the priority research

themes for the new European Research Area, such as nanoscience and technology, materials processing and

biomedical applications.

Researches in Europe have a leading role in the field of laser ablation promoting European scientific excellence.

The organisation of COLA'03 in Europe offers a great opportunty for advancing the European state-of-the-art

in the field by providing:

- a stimulating environment for fruitful interaction between scientists

- efficient exchange of views between research and industry communities

- a high-quality training to young researchers, essential for their studies and future career.

A high level and dynamic training component in COLA'03 is implemented through:

- the selection of conference topics representing areas of intense current scientific and technological interest

- the invitation of world-known experts to lecture on "hot" topics

- a programme structure with brainstorming lecture-discussion sessions, to allow selected project presentations by

young scientists with leading experts in the field

- the organization of poster sessions, followed by discussion sessions, to allow selected project presentations by<

Conformational changes in bio-molecules are closely linked to their function and thus of major interest for an understanding of many biological processes. For a number of biologically active RNA molecules there are indications from biochemical assays that they are able to regulate their function by switching between different conformations of similar energetic stability. An important example is the RNA genome of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which is responsible for the AIDS disease, one of the most serious pandemics ever caused by a virus. Despite an intensive research effort the ultimate vaccine or drug against this disease has not yet been successfully developed. The difficulty related to this can be explained by the extraordinary high rate of genetic evolution of the RNA genome, which is related to a high mutation rate and a tendency of the RNA molecules to form dimers. The mechanism by which dimerization is initiated and regulated in the viral life cycle is not very well understood but is believed to be mediated by conformational changes in the RNA. The objective of the present project is to address in detail this issue with a new experimental technique, single-molecule fluorescence- resonance-energy-transfer (FRET) microscopy, which promises important new knowledge that cannot be obtained with traditional, ensemble-averaging methods. The activity proposed here is very much in line with the objectives of the Marie Curie Actions, implying the transfer of knowledge and promotion of European scientific excellence, and depending on interdisciplinary collaborations at the national and European levels. Furthermore, it can be classified as nanoscience as well as life science and biotechnology, all of which are declared priority levels of the European Commission.

Since their first demonstration in 1995, Bose-Einstein condensâtes have become an attractive tool for further developments in fields as various as integrated atom chips, atomic clocks and quantum computing. Thus, it is important to understand the properties of these condensâtes in detail, and in particular the condensed matter behaviour of their phase properties. We propose to investigate scattering, fusion, and interference of two simultaneously trapped Bose-Einstein condensâtes. The main goal is to study the influence of topological macroscopic excitations - vortices - on the phase coherence phenomena and dynamical properties. The present project focuses on the experimental approach. A direct interaction with the theoretical group in the host institution will help extracting the physical picture of the dissipative dynamics of vortex-antivortex annihilation under these conditions. The work will be done in the 'Quantum Gases' group run by Prof. Dr. J. T. M. Walraven and Prof. Dr. G. V. Shlyapnikov, at AMOLF, Amsterdam. This group has demonstrated its expertise in both experimental and theoretical work on ultra cold gases and Bose Einstein Condensation. The host group has agreed to embed this proposal into their research program. A preliminary experiment has already been done with the experimental apparatus at the host institute, which demonstrates the possibility of driving the collision of two magnetically trapped Bose-Einstein condensâtes. The setup will be upgraded to allow the proposed vortex experiments. Scattering will be studied by driving fast collisions between high-density condensâtes; fusion by slowly colliding high-density condensâtes; interference by overlapping low-density condensâtes. In this setting the applicant will develop high level scientific skills complementary to those he has already developed during his PhD thesis. He will also participate in international conferences and in managing and supervising.

Entangled quantum systems behave in ways impossible in any classical world. Even as entanglement of simple composite systems is reasonably well understood, the nature of complex entangled systems is largely unexplored. We will investigate entanglement of increasing complexity, either by entangling more and more systems with each other, or by entangling systems with a larger number of degrees of freedom. Firstly, we plan to derive new Bell's inequalities (tests of quantum non-locality) for higher-dimensional entangled systems and a larger number of choices for measurement settings for each system. The contradiction of quantum mechanical predictions with local realism is expected to be even stronger than currently known. Secondly, the entanglement that naturally exists between constituents of various complex physical systems such as chains of interacting spins will be studied. We will investigate how the amount of entanglement between several spins varies with the change of the number of spins, the strength of the coupling between them, temperature, the strength of the external field etc. The second part of the project investigates whether and how much entanglement is needed for quantum communication and quantum computation to outperform those which are based on the laws of classical physics. Firstly, we intend to develop new quantum communication complexity protocols exploiting higher-dimensional entanglement and to derive their complexity as a function of the amount of entanglement used. We expect to observe an increase of the separation between the complexity of the quantum solution and the best classical strategy as the dimensionality of the entangled systems grows. Secondly, by considering quantum computation as a communication process we plan to derive the complexity of certain quantum algorithms as a function of the amount of entanglement consumed.

The Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship makes possible a one year visit by Dr Philip Meeson (University of Bristol, U.K.) to the Quantronics Group of Dr Daniel Esteve (CEA-Saclay, France). Dr Meeson is an experienced researcher in the field of fundamental physics of superconductivity and most aspects of ultra low temperature technology. He also has some research experience in mesoscopic devices. Recent research has focussed on the topic of quantum oscillations (the de Haas-van Alphen effect) in superconductors. He is a co-author of a recent graduate level textbook on low temperature techniques and a permanent member of staff in Bristol. Dr Esteve is the head of the Quantronics research group of the CEA-Saclay. The group is a world leader in nanofabrication and experimental aspects of the fundamental properties of nanoscale metals and superconductors. Most recently he has been responsible for the landmark development of the 'Quantronium', a superconducting nanoelectronic device which has greatly furthered knowledge of macroscopic quantum mechanics and which may form the basis of a future quantum computing technology. The purpose of the visit is to exchange knowledge and promote scientific excellence in the areas of superconducting nanotechnology and quantum qubits. One outcome of the research in Saclay will be to engineer the worlds first entangled multiple solid state qubit operating with single shot readout. Such an accomplishment is an obvious next step in the development of solid state quantum computing but the proposal is highly ambitious and requires the implementation of a number of difficult experimental conditions. A principal aim of this work is the transfer of knowledge of nanofabrication techniques from Saclay to a new research effort in Bristol to explore fundamental quantum behaviour in superconducting devices in Bristol. Future collaborations are also envisaged.

This conference deals with a new and exciting method to deposit silicon and carbon based materials, Catalytic Chemical Vapour Deposition, or Hot Wire CVD. It is an inherently cheap, and an amazingly fast and gentle method for the deposition of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon, diamond like carbon, and carbon nanotubes. The interest in this method is currently exploding worldwide. Bringing together in Europe experienced and young scientists from all over the world to interact in this exciting area will be beneficial to the thin film scientific community as a whole. Europe has the largest number of research groups that are active in this field, but advanced expertise is available overseas, in the USA and Japan. This conference will therefore be very effective, by bringing in overseas experts as well as many young researchers from Europe, including the Associated States. The conference will address the chemical deposition chemistry (including catalytic filament issues) and chemical and electronic passivation techniques, the thin films that can be obtained consisting of silicon possessing various nanostructures, epitaxial films, insulating films, and carbon-related films. In addition it will deal with the industrial implementation that is currently under study also in Europe, by demonstrating large area and economically interesting capabilities of the technique. The high deposition rate is of interest to the solar cell industry and the display industry. Also carbon nanotubes can be produced at high rate and conformai coverage by thin polymer layers, e.g. on biomédical applications, has been achieved. The lack of ion bombardment translates into superior surface passivation and significant noise reduction in electronic devices. The properties of many advanced materials are based on functional layers. It is the goal of this conference to understand why Cat-CVD can deposit high quality films at comparatively high rates, for #

The ASDAM Conference is being organized every second year since 1996 in Smolenice, Slovakia. During this period the Conference developed to one of the most famous and important semiconductor meetings at minimum in the Central European region. The Conference is organized alternately by the Institute of Electrical Engineering of Slovak Academy of Sciences and Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. The Conference is devoted to the latest results of the research and development in the field of semiconductor nanodevices and microsystems. Its goal is to bring together leading experts from European Union Member States and from Associated Candidate Countries. In the Conference also the scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union take part. The proceedings of the ASDAM 96 Conference was published in re-known journal Solid-State Electronics. Proceedings of the following meeting were published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. - IEEE. Also the Conference ASDAM 04 will concentrate on the following topics: *Materials and nanotechnologies *Nanostructures and nanodevices *Modelling and characterization *Micro(nano)electromechanical systems. The Conference will be held from October 17th to October 21st 2004 in Smolenice Castle, Slovakia. Each Conference topic will be introduced by a leading European expert in the field. Besides invited talks there will be ten plenary and two poster sessions to illustrate the state-of-the-art and indicate future trends for every discussed topic.

The project aims at the development of optical switch technologies for packet-switched opti- cal networks, based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) using self-organised (InGa)As/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) as active region. QD SOAs exhibit broad gain spectra, ena- bling the amplification of high-bandwidth spectral channels in coarse wavelength division multi- plexed communication systems. Optical routing and switching device technology will be com- bined with novel GaAs-based long-wavelength emitters at 1.3 µm. This interdisciplinary ap- proach combines optical datacom techniques with semiconductor nanotechnology. The project is expected to advance the application of nanotechnology in optoelectronics with the aim of implementing quantum-dot material technology into integrated optoelectronic circuits for larger-bandwidth optical datacom and thus complies with the Thematic Priority 2 (1ST) of FP6. The projects builds on recent evidence that QD systems could be eminently suitable for wide-band switching applications and might substantially improve the performance of next gen- eration datacom systems. The conjunction of both research fields has not been performed to an extent that allows the full exploitation of the advantages of quantum-dot based optoelectronic materials. The applicant, originating from Germany, will benefit from superb training by the host or- ganization, the University of Cambridge (UK). He will gain expertise in combining materials science with research on next-generation photonic datacom solutions. At the end of the fellow- ship, the applicant\'s scientific skills will range from materials nanotechnology over optoelec- tronic devices up to architectures for future high-capacity all-optical networks. Such a threefold combination of expertise is very rare and will significantly contribute to enhance EU scientific excellence.