The spectrum of applications ranges from car paint, catalysts and high-performance materials to medical uses, data storage and microelectronics and nanoelectronics, to name just a few examples.
The recent rapid progress in the area of nanotechnology is being driven by two central developments. Scientific progress, on the one hand, is enabling the creation of completely new products, processes and technologies for use in industry. Further progress in the existing key technologies, on the other hand, is becoming more and more dependent on the understanding and control of functional structures on the nanometer scale. More and more often, however, technological progress is being restricted due to the lack of understanding of structures on the nanometer scale. This is where research is called upon to develop corresponding know-how and provide answers to the technological questions and challenges of the future.
In this context, nanotechnology is considered to be a cross-sectional technology and, for successful research as well as for efficient implementation in concrete applications, very close collaboration between the different disciplines is indispensable. The »Functional Nanostructures« Competence Network acts as a platform for such specific, inter-disciplinary, geographically widespread research in the area of nanotechnology in Baden-Württemberg. The aim of the network of competence is to investigate the manufacture, properties and underlying operating principles of intelligent »functional nanostructures« and thus to lay the foundations for future applications and for systematic further development of existing ones as well.
In the network, whose spokespersons are the Karlsruher scientists Prof. Thomas Schimmel and Prof. Hilbert von Löhneysen, the competences of leading locations in the area of functional nanostructures are bundled together in Baden-Württemberg, whereby existing synergies are being exploited at the same time. In particular, the universities of Karlsruhe, Constance, Stuttgart and Ulm as well as the Karlsruher Research Centre and the Max Planck Institute for Solid Body Research in Stuttgart are participants in this networked association. Each of the six parties involved in the competence network already has a successfully established research program that focuses on one particular aspect of nanotechnology. In fact, these partners complement each other ideally in respect of the areas of research they are currently engaged in.
The competence network is thus not only contributing to the state-wide pooling of competence in the field of functional nanostructures. What is more important is that it is also helping to profile each of the six institutions involved in the area of nanotechnology in the context of their respective development plans.
The competence network involves cross-locational and interdisciplinary cooperation between Baden-Württemberg work groups active in the field of nanotechnology, especially from the areas of physics, chemistry, material sciences and engineering sciences as well as nanobiology. There exists comprehensive competence in the domain of functional nanostructures – from chemical synthesis, physical experiments and measuring methods to theoretical procedures, methods of simulation and application-oriented investigations.
The activities of the competence network concentrate on three main areas:
1. implementing joint, cross-locational and interdisciplinary projects for research into key aspects of nanotechnology
2. promoting the exchange of scientific ideas and experience between the work groups involved as well as fostering new up-and-coming scientists in the area of nanotechnology, and
3. promoting international programs of cooperation.
In the area of joint, cross-locational and interdisciplinary research projects, more than 100 scientists from 38 independent scientific work groups are currently working together. At the moment, there are 21 interdisciplinary research projects on key topics of nanotechnology, headed by a total of 66 scientists from Baden-Württemberg. The research projects and programs referred to are being financed by the Baden-Württemberg state foundation, which is now promoting the projects after a preceding scientific evaluation of the competence network and after assessment of the individual projects by a committee of international experts. In each of these 21 projects, there are up to five autonomous work groups, mostly composed of people from different research disciplines and from different locations and research institutes who are working on a common research goal. Only through the collaboration of the different groups and locations involved and the pooling of different competences will it be possible to achieve the research objectives that have been set.
Current work ranges from the development of suitable manufacturing methods to the investigation of physical and chemical properties and possible applications. Functional nanostructures on the nanometer scale are always the focal point of interest, the properties of which and their interactions being crucial for their use in very different areas of application. In this context, three main areas of use for such nanostructures can be distinguished in terms of the applications. In accordance with this, the activities of the competence network are divided into three area of research:
Project area A – Nanodevices
with a special focus on questions and applications in the area of nanoelectronics, nanooptics and nanomechanics
Project area B – Functional surfaces
where the work is concentrated on nanostructured surfaces and contact surfaces as well as on nanostructures on surfaces
Project area C – Nanoparticles and nanomaterials
with a focus on nanostructured materials as well as the synthesis and properties of nanoparticles and clusters.
The indicated fields of research cover three key areas for the technological use of functional nanostructures. A fundamental understanding of the properties and interactions of nanostructures in devices, on surfaces or in materials forms the basis for further development of existing areas of application and the exploration of new ones. Examples range from nanoelectronics and nanooptics, medical equipment and sensors, to the development of new high-performance materials and coatings. Highly diverse, technologically relevant properties of materials, coatings and devices such as electronic, optical, tribological, adhesive or chemical properties are directly due to their structure on the nanometer scale.
Scientific ideas and experience are exchanged in the framework of numerous small and large meetings, seminars and workshops of the groups of researchers involved. Once a year, there is a two-day status workshop in which all the scientists of the competence network meet to present and discuss their results by means of presentations and posters. One past workshop of the competence network, which took place in September 2006 in the Haus der Kirche of the Evangelische Akademie Baden in Bad Herrenalb, was very successful. The aim of the annual status workshop is to allow the scientists from the work groups in the competence network to exchange thoughts and experience. Up to now, over 100 scientists have taken part in the workshops. Apart from the members and applicants as well as the scientists backed by the competence network, other parties involved in the projects or employees who were interested were invited to attend. This especially applied to degree students and graduates studying for their doctorates. This complied with the goal of actively promoting new up-and-coming scientists in the area of nanotechnology and fostering scientific exchange on the level of work inside the individual projects as well as between projects.
In the context of international cooperative ventures, the competence network is selecting collaboration projects with guest scientists from China from purposes of joint research into nanotechnology and coordinating the visits of the corresponding guests. The Baden-Württemberg/Chinese collaboration project is being promoted by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Education and Art as well as by the Shanghai Nanotechnology Promotion Center in the framework of a collaboration agreement.
In the »Functional Nanostructures« Competence Network, the conditions for research in the interdisciplinary field of nanotechnology are ideal. There is not only an interdisciplinary research association, in which different disciplines involved in experimentation, theory, physics, chemistry and the life sciences as well as electrical engineering and the material sciences, work closely together. The different competences and focal points of the individual partners involved complement each other perfectly.
http://www.nanonetz-bw.de/
