Projects at a Glance

  • HiMat - Hybrid layered materials for next generation electronics

    HiMat focuses on the development of hybrid layered materials (HLMs) with tailored physical  properties and their integration in lab-scale devices for opto- and spin- electronics or quantum computing. By taking advantage from the chemical flexibility of organic molecules, HiMat explores tailored HLMs obtained through a top-down approach as intercalated compounds and through a bottom-up approach as organic-inorganic metal-halide perovskites.

     

  • LSD - Low-dimensional Spin Devices

    This project explored materials and architectures with low dimensionality and symmetry to develop spintronic devices. We created structures based on van der Waals materials or quiral materias in order to study the effect of symmetry breaking on the materials’ spin properties.

     

  • Functional Nano-Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine PhD programme

    The mission of NanoReMedi is to define a joint doctorate educational training model in Functional Nano-Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine where Academia and Industry join their forces to create a highly innovative research network for training a new generation of researchers who will enter the area of nanoscience from adjacent disciplines (such as chemistry, material sciences and bioinformatics) establish a solid framework for long-term research cooperation between a pool of leading Universities and Enterprises build a solid foundation for long-term European excellence in medical nanotechnology. 

  • OPTOMETAMAG - Optical-control of thermally driven magnetic phase transitions in metamaterials

    The project aims at developing hybrid systems combining the ultralow energy, speed, and control of plasmonic opto-heating with the unique property of nanoscale graded magnetic metamaterials to display magnetic phase transitions across precisely engineered critical temperatures. 

  • NANOSPEC - Advanced near-field optical nanospectroscopy and novel applications in material sciences and nanophotonics

    The objectives of the project include establishing correlative nano-FTIR, TERS, and TEPL spectroscopy, studying industrially relevant polymers, exploring organic conductors' conductivity, and investigating phonon polaritons in 2D materials. The project targets developing advanced near-field spectroscopy instrumentation and achieving vibrational strong coupling in nanoresonators and molecular vibrations.

  • CARDIOPRINT - Advanced multifunction 3D biofabrication for the generation of computationally modelled human-scale therapeutic cardiac tissues 

    CARDIOPRINT is born with the ambition of shaping a quantum leap in the fields of Additive Manufacturing and Biofabrication of therapeutic human cardiac tissues, at both the technological and applicative levels. The overall concept of this enterprising project is to develop a new multifunctional additive manufacturing technology able to provide the sufficient accuracy for the manufacturing of human tissues at an organ scale for the first time. 

  • HYTEM - Organic-inorganic hybrid thermoelectric materials through a new concept of simultaneous vapor phase coating and infiltration (VPI/SCIP)

    Polymers and inorganics come together to support novel waste heat harvesting.

    Organic-inorganic hybrid materials can significantly enhance the design space for novel functionalities, integrating the best properties of the individual components and even resulting in new ones. Polymers and functional inorganic compounds are the top players in the world of materials science. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the HYTEM project will bring them together literally, generating inorganic structures simultaneously in the subsurface of a bulk polymer and on its top surface. The expected result: novel hybrid thermoelectric materials able to scavenge waste heat and turn it into electricity with unparalleled efficiency.

  • SNOMCELL - Near-field microscopy for label-free ultrastructural pathology

    This project aims at establishing s-SNOM as a platform technology for label-free ultrastructural pathology. s-SNOM is an emerging technique -- co-developed at nanoGUNE -- that beats the diffraction limit and allows for obtaining infrared images with nanoscale spatial resolution. Applied to ultrathin cell sections, s-SNOM will allow for an unprecedented view on the chemical composition of the interior of a cell that cannot be easily calculated nor measured. Thus, s-SNOM will provide a reference data set that will help to validate already existing medical application of infrared microscopy and may even lead to the discovery of new nano-IR biomarkers.
     

  • CryoFIB - Advanced ion beam instrument with cryogenic functionality

    A unique combination of features in a single focused ion beam electron microscope. 

  • SPECTER - Spin-charge conversion in highly resistive spin-orbit materials

    With the current technology of transistors reaching characteristic sizes of a few nanometers, and heating effects becoming more severe, the regular functionality of processors is at stake. In the next few years, new technologies are required to sustain the increasingly high demands imposed by the consumer electronics industry worldwide. Among the wide range of proposed options, spintronics is considered to be one of the leading candidates to fill this gap, backed by recent proposals for spin-based computation using magnetoelectric spin-orbit devices. In these devices, the magnetic state of a ferromagnetic material is read through the conversion of spin currents in charge currents, where two resistance levels can be unambiguously detected depending on the magnetization direction of the ferromagnet, i.e. a “1” and a ”0” state.