Four internal research projects are underway to respond to social challenges

The Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM, CSIC) has launched four TRIGGER projects. With a duration of one year, it allocates funding to internal initiatives with the aim of giving coordination experience to the center's postdoctoral research staff.

Six IMB-CNM postdoctoral researchers, one woman and five men, will lead these projects that address crucial challenges in society in the areas of health, environment, energy and mobility. The evaluation of all the projects presented, a total of 11, has been coordinated by an international scientific committee made up of researchers John Hedley, from Newcastle University; Santos Merino, from Tekniker; and Kirill Zinoviev, from IMEC.

Manufacturing vertical Silicon nanowire devices to extend the performance of future circuits and systems

PI: Esteve Amat

To increase the integration level of the devices on electronic circuits, the industry is exploring a change into the manufacturing topology. Instead of the conventional horizontal structure, the 3D vertical one is gaining higher relevance thanks to lower impact in area-footprint. This project wants to explore the fabrication of vertical pillars with a high aspect ratio and with a well-defined doping nanometric regions; which will be valid as well as electronic nano-devices as nano-sensors circuits.

ORSIC: Oxide Reliability in Silicon Carbide

PI: Oriol Aviñó

ORSIC aims to improve electronic components reliability and robustness, specially focusing on 4H-SiC MOSFETs. This is addressed by the proposal of a 4H-SiC-adapted new methodology for industrial qualification, enabling more confident lifetime estimations and a reduction of the TDDB qualification testing time 90% thanks to a further knowledge on the underlying degradation physics. Besides, last-generation silicon carbide MOSFETs structures are analysed by means of advanced electro-thermal characterization techniques, identifying their main weakness relatives to the gate structure and their failure signatures. As a result, ORSIC will provide a physical background key for a more reliable device and system design.

PLACED: Planar All-Carbon electrode Diamond detector for radiotherapy

PI: Ivan López and Elif Ozçeri

Diamond is an alternative to silicon as material to fabricate radiation detectors: it has a higher thermal conductivity, so it does not require cooling. Diamond also needs higher energies to remove atoms from the crystal, which makes it more radiation tolerant. Having a similar atomic weight than water, a detector made out of diamond/carbon only would ease the conversion between radiation dose delivered in the sensor to that delivered in tissue, which is very useful for clinical radiotherapy. However, metal layers can cause unwanted effects in the measurement of radiation for this very application. Thankfully, graphite, another form of carbon like diamond, is electrically conductive. In the PLACED project, the aim is to fabricate a detector for radiotherapy by replacing the metallic layers with graphite, that is, carbon electrode diamond detector. The equipment available at the IMB-CNM will be used to investigate different manufacturing processes and produce a prototype that will then be tested to use dosimetry first in the laboratory and then in an accelerator.

PLAMEC: PLAsmo-MEChanical platform for high-precision monitoring of bacterial growth before the cell division

PI: Sergi Brosel and Ferran Pujol

The lack of precise, microscopy-free, and inexpensive methods for detecting the bacterial growth before the cell division imposes many detrimental outcomes. The project aims at developing an advanced plasmo-mechanical technology for high-precision monitoring of the bacterial cell elongation. The strong near-field interaction between neighbouring plasmonic nanostructures will be exploited, which is extremely sensitive to small changes in the distance between particles. The proposed platform, based on the combination of nanoplasmonic elements with soft mechanical structures, will allow measuring the axial forces exerted by growing bacteria much before the final cell division. Manifold benefits are envisioned, from the precise study of the bacterial cell dynamics to the rapid assessment of their antibiotic susceptibility.