During the last few years there was a growing interest in the realization of nanostructured materials that absolve specific functionalities. The progress in the synthesis techniques and in the fabrication methods has permitted the development of this new class of materials. Thus peculiar electrical, optical, magnetic and chemical properties have been exploited by already finding applications in several fields.
CNR-IMM Institute has developed a great experience in several classes of functional nanostructured materials, such as nanowires, nanoparticles, nanotubes, two-dimensional materials and nanometric films. The accurate control of the synthesis is obtained by sophisticated techniques and by low cost chemical and electrochemical methods, always potentially scalable at industrial and commercial level. The Institute is also devoted to the development of tailored and innovative detection techniques and devices in order to control the materials properties at the nanometric scale. Thus the control of the nanomaterials properties through the process parameters is our main strength. Moreover the developed peculiar functionalities have found application in many fields, such as microelectronics, sensing, energy, optoelectronics, water purification and so on.
In this research area, a great part of the activity is carried out inside national and international projects. The major areas of work at IMM are below reported.