11-08 :: August 2011

nanotimes EU-Projects

At the same time, Efonga emphasised the need to improve the chemical composition and production processes of glasses so as to reduce environmental impact.

Contact: Rene Vacher, CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RE- CHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE (CNRS), Paris, FR, Phone: +33-4-67143449.

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The study produced many positive results. One ex- ample is the modelling of the structural evolution of nc-Si and nc-Si/a-Si (crystalline v amorphous ratio) by accounting for stress effects, and determining the in- terface atomic mobility under arbitrary temperature/ stress conditions. Further studies showed that there is no electron-wave function confinement in pure silicon systems.

New Applications for Photovoltaics, Optoelectronics

The “Nanocrystalline silicon films for photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications” (Nanophoto) project worked on developing nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) films for applications in photovoltaics and optoelectronics. To aid this work, the EU-funded project also set out to develop computational tools to assist the design of a new nc-Si growth process with a variant of a low-energy plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (LEPECVD) reactor.

Modelling activities included molecular dynamics (MD) and from-scratch calculations, and computati- onal tools were used to evaluate microstructure and strain. To begin with, researchers aimed to deter- mine the best approaches to describe the complex, multi-scale physics of nc-Si films grown by LEPECVD. Models were first applied to ideal situations to gain a better understanding of fundamental physics. They were then applied to real world situations, with signi- ficant findings.

By employing a DAC-TB algorithm, LEPECVD team members were able to fully characterise the electro- nic properties of nc-Si during finite temperature cry- stallisation. This allowed for a comparison – the first of its kind – between the structural and optoelectro- nic properties of large-scale nanocrystalline models.

The study also returned positive experimental results in prototyping.

Contact: Prof. Sergio Pizzini, University of Milano-Bicoc- ca, Milano, Italy, Phone: +39-02-6448-5135: http://www.sergiopizzini.eu/projects.html

Nanocrystals Breakthrough

The “Integrated nanocrystal tunnelling for mo- lecular electronics” (Innate) project studied the properties and capabilities of quantum-size metal nanocrystals as active elements in molecular electro- nic circuits. Innate project partners focused on the electrochemical and electronic behaviour of small monolayer-protected clusters (MPCs) of gold.

Contact: Thomas Wandlowski (Professor), University of Bern, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, CH Phone: +41-316315384.