Q-NET · Quantum Nano-Electronics Training

Quantum Nano-Electronics Training

The “Quantum Nano-Electronics Training” project, with acronym Q-NET, see http://www.quantum-net.org, is a European network of experts providing state-of-the-art training for young researchers in the general field of experimental, applied and theoretical Quantum Nano-Electronics. Improving our conceptual understanding of quantum electron transport at the nanoscale is needed for enabling the emergence of “Beyond C-MOS“ nano-electronics devices. This implies a combined effort in the topics of spintronics, molecular electronics, single-electronics, quantum dots and nanowires, nano-cooling. Rapidly-progressing studies on Quantum Nano-Electronics rely on state-of-the-art technologies of nanofabrication, electron and near-field microscopies, transport measurement under extreme conditions (low temperatures, magnetic field, radio-frequency irradiation) and theoretical calculations. Quantum Nano-Electronics has created a challenging and innovative framework for training young researchers with excellent prospects for a career either in the industry or in academia. At present, an estimate of 1000 researchers is active in the field and about 150 PhD students are graduating every year. This small number of PhDs is getting increased in order to meet industrial needs in terms of highly skilled scientific staff in the micro- and nano-electronics industry. There is also a strong demand for such trained researchers from the industries of instrumentation, metrology, gas handling, telecommunication, and space. Q-NET’s general objective has been to increase the training level of the European researchers in the field of Quantum Nano-Electronics. In order to reach that objective, Q-NET has: - Trained early career researchers at the highest level in an all-inclusive way.- Made new S&T advances in the Quantum Nano-Electronics field.- Provided world-class S&T training sessions in Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies. The recruited 14 PhD students and 2 post-doctoral fellows have received training on a wide set of carefully identified expertises at a level defined within a personal career development plan. Q-NET training includes scientific and technological expertise in the general field of Quantum Nano-Electronics and a full set of complementary expertise. The complementary training program aims at equipping Q-NET trainees with entrepreneurial mindsets, thus enhancing their employability in both the industry and academics. A comprehensive set of collaboration schemes was organized between the consortium’s partners, with carefully defined research objectives. Systematic secondments of recruited researchers from one partner to several others were organized, including secondments to private sector partners. This placement scheme carries the double objective of training the seconded researchers and of fostering S&T objectives achievement. A Supervisory Board closely endorses Q-NET training with a strong involvement from the two private sector partners, who contribute to training by lecturing at complementary Special Training Sessions. Q-NET contributed to a deeper conceptual understanding of quantum devices based on individual nano-objects and phase-coherent phenomena. New concepts, new materials and new approaches have been developed, investigated and applied. Q-NET both improved the specifications and performances of existing devices concepts and developed new kinds of nano-structures with exciting new features. Q-NET achievements are varied and numerous. At UJF, we have demonstrated that ripples and charge puddles in screened graphene are spatially correlated. Q-NET fellows at CNR-NEST and UJF have shown that a cascade ggeometry of electronic coolers based on hybrid tunnel junctions can improve electronic cooling well beyond the present state-of-the-art. At AALTO, the thermal response of a mesoscopic electron bath was followed in real-time at the microsecond time scale. In relation with the Graphene flagship team at ETH, Q-NET fellows have studied the finite-bias spectroscopy of a three-terminal graphene quantum dot in the multilevel regime. At NGU, thanks to an increased reliability of inelastic tunneling measurements, molecular vibrational modes could be tuned by chemical modification of the medium, allowing us to tune the spin polarized current in organic semiconductors. The industrial partner ATTO performed state-of-the-art scanning probe microscopy measurements in a pulse tube based top-loading closed-cycle cryostat with a base temperature of 4 K and a 9 T magnet, demonstrating for the first time quartz-crystal tuning fork shear-force microscopy in a closed-cycle cryostat. Q-NET fellows at LEEDS investigated the Co-doping dependence of the structural, transport, and magnetic properties of ε-FeCoSi epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy on silicon (111) substrates showing a highly spin-polarised electron gas in the semiconducting regime. At CTH, we have investigated both the temperature and the power dependence of microwave losses for various dielectrics used as substrates for the growth of High critical Temperature Superconductor thin films. Q-NET has organized four sessions of the European School On Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (ESONN) devoted to Quantum Nano-Electronics, combining both theoretical and practical training, and opened them to young researchers outside the consortium. The level of Q-NET impact can be easily measured through the high number (37) of peer-reviewed publications published during the project duration, with several Physical Review Leters, Applied Physics Letters, Nature Publishing Group papers, Physical Review B. Many more high-impact publications are expected to appear from Q-NET project.

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