More about the programme
The scientific and technological issues of nanostructured particles and materials are on the verge of becoming a wide research and development field, very topical for the technical sciences and beyond. This perspective is essentially based on the fact that nanostructured particles and materials, and the physical or chemical combination of substances at the nanometer or subnanometer scale, can lead to innovative materials with improved or even unexpected properties. Applications of great impact can be anticipated in fields like catalysis, technical ceramics, membrane technology, opto-electronics, and solid state ionics with emphasis on systems for clean energy conversion and storage. However, progress in these fields will largely depend on the pace of advance of the fundamental research on nanostructured particles and materials in solid state chemistry, solid state physics, and materials science.
In principle, the synthesis routes pursued today for the generation of nanostructured and nanocomposite particles and materials are based either on special solution processing techniques which have been derived from established solution chemistry, or on newly developed gas-phase deposition methods. In solution processing, the possible combinations of constituents for the synthesis of mainly oxidic materials is restricted. Deposition from a vapour phase mixture of the components through gas phase techniques can be more versatile, and widely applicable, as gas phase techniques can be applied to nearly any material, opening up the perspective of the generation of new nanoparticles and new nanostructured materials from, in principle, a nearly unlimited variety of starting materials.
The starting point of gas-phase synthesis of nanostructured materials is the generation of gas-borne nano-sized particles. Particle-gas systems are called aerosols. In order to promote, in Europe, basic technology research into problems of nanostructured particles and materials, the creation of the bridges between the aerosol community and the materials science community are a prerequisite. This was the main conclusion of an ESF Exploratory Workshop, held in October 1993, and formed the basis of the discussions between research groups from the two disciplines, from which proposal for the NANO Programme resulted.
The scientific thrust of the proposed research subjects is the synthesis of aerosols, their characterization and deposition, with the aim of generating single-phase or nanodispersed structural ceramic materials and electroceramics with new or improved properties.
