This project aims at the development of a new generation of low dimensional responsive systems and sensors that integrate nanostructured layers with well-controlled electrical and optical properties which, prepared by innovative vacuum and plasma methods, present a tunable and high porosity and are able to actively interact with the environment. The basic principles of the oblique angle approach (OAD) during the physical vapor deposition (PVD) of evaporated thin films will be extended to the fabrication of similar layers by plasma and magnetron sputtering techniques. Combination of these techniques along with other innovative plasma technologies, including atmospheric pressure plasma deposition or plasma-evaporation polymerization will be employed to achieve a strict control over the nanostructure and properties of final films and complex systems . Supported metal and oxide nanostructured thin films, stacked multilayers and hybrid and composite suported nanostructures will be prepared and thereafter characterized by advanced electron and proximity microscopies and other techniques. Process-control strategies will be implemented in order to understand the fundamental mechanisms governing the film structurations and to propose new synthetic routes scalable to industrial production so as to achieve tailored morphologies and properties for these porous thin film materials. Highly ordered and homogenous arrays of these nanostructures will be used as ambient temperature gas and liquid sensors, microfluidic responsive devices and intelligent labelling tags. For these applications the supported porous thin films will be suitably functionalized with metal nanoparticles, grafted molecular chains or layers of other polymeric materials. They will be also stacked in the form of vertically ordered photonic structures. Innovative device integration approaches including the water removal of evaporated sacrificial layers of NaCl and their integration in the form of microdevices will be carried out to fabricate advanced sensors, microreactors and responsive systems. Photonic, electrical and/or electrochemical principles of transduction will be implemented into the devices for detecting and/or fabricating i) oxygen and chlorine in solutions, ii) glucose and organic matter in water iii) gas and vapor sensors or iv) inteligent labels. Specific applications are foressen for the control of the outside environment (air and waters), industrial and greenhouse locations, agroindustrial processes such as fermentation and the tracking and trazability of different kinds of goods and foods.

The objective of this Project is the development of new integrated and robust micro/nano- fluidic systems that enable the reliable incorporation of control tests, sensorization and rapid analysis of agrofood products, mainly liquids or soluble. The technology to be developed should be applied to final products, as well as during their different elaboration steps. IN particular, a niche of application that will be directly addressed in the project is the control of fermentation process with the development of new integrated fluidic transductors that permit the quantitative detection of glucose and/or other sugars by means of electrochemical and photonic developments integrated in microfluidic and similar devices.

NANOPLASMA proposes the development of novel techniques based on plasma for the synthesis and processing of new organic functional materials. In contrast with the established plasma technology used in plasma enhanced CVD and plasma polymerization that implies the complete fragmentation of volatile precursor molecules, NANOPLASMA processes achieve the synthesis of new families of fluorescent thin films and supported 1D nanomaterials by controlling the chemistry and fragmentation degree at the boundaries of plasma discharge. The research focuses in the synthesis of organic matrices with a well controlled nanometric microstructure incorporating luminescent dye molecules (i.e. perylenes, rhodamines, phtalocyanines y porphirins) and 1D luminescent organic nanowires formed by similar molecules. The project also contemplates the development of methodologies based on the plas-ma etching and laser ablation for the production of 2D lithographic patterns of the lumines-cent thin films and nanostructures. The research in this line will be completed with basic stud-ies aiming the development of a “chemical patterning” process based on the plasma surface functionalization and chemical derivatization of self-assembled monolayers. Both the synthetic methodologies and the patterning strategies of NANOPLASMA are fully compatible with the present optoelectronic and silicon technologies and can be adapted to wafer scale integration for mass scale production. These materials and processes will be used for the fabrication of two types of proto-type devices: photonic gas sensors and luminescent microstructures for intelligent labelling applications. The gas sensing devices consist of a luminescence film and/or structure integrat-ed onto a 1D photonic crystal with a stacking defect designed and constructed to couple the luminescent signal of the sensor layer. The intelligent labelling devices are patterned litho-graphic structures made on single or multilayer structures of luminescence films with specific functionalities and environmental responses not achieved by any available technology.

The development of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) operating on hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas, biofuel,LPG) is the key to their short to medium term broad commercialization. The development of direct HC SOFCs still meets lot of challenges and problems arising from the fact that the anode materials operate under severe conditions leading to low activity towards reforming and oxidation reactions, fast deactivation due to carbon formation and instability due to the presence of sulphur compounds. Although research on these issues is intensive, no major technological breakthroughs have been so far with respect to robust operation, sufficient lifetime and competitive cost. T-CELL proposes a novel electrochemical approach aiming at tackling these problems by a comprehensive effort to define, explore, characterize, develop and realize a radically new triode approach to SOFC technology means of an integrated approach based both on materials development and on the deployment of an innovative cell design that permits the effective control of electrocatalytic activity under steam or dry reforming conditions. The novelty of the proposed work lies in the pioneering effort to apply Ni-modified materials electrodes of proven advanced tolerance, as anodic electrodes in SOFCs and in the exploitation of our novel triode SOFC concept which introduces a new controllable variable into fuel cell operation. In order to provide a proof of concept of the stackability of triode cells, a triode SOFC stack consisting of at least 4 repeating units will be developed and its performance will be evaluated under methane and steam co-feed, in presence of a small concentration of sulphur compound.