We live in a constantly changing society in which information and communication are at the basis of our economy. To keep progressing is essential to investigate new feasible ways to control and manipulate information in order to develop faster, smaller and less consuming devices. Organic Spintronics has emerged as a promising field to develop low-cost, mechanically-flexible and multi-functional devices in which information is carried not only by the charge but also by the spin of electrons. However, the injection and transport of the spin information through a device remains challenging, being organic/inorganic interfaces key to overcome this limitation. DELICE addresses the interface engineering in organic spintronics, aiming to profit from unique molecular capabilities for the development of highly performant chemically-tailored organic spintronic devices. In particular, DELICE focuses on exploiting the predicted spin filtering behavior of some organometallic molecules to obtain highly spin-polarized interfaces, enhancing the spin injection from ferromagnetic surface or even creating spin-polarization on non-magnetic metal surfaces. These so-called spinterfaces will be implemented in organic spintronic devices, spin valves, in order to determine the impact they have on the device performances. While organics have been mainly used as passive spacers in such devices, DELICE plans to go beyond the state of the art by actively exploiting the molecule’s spin filtering capability to improve device performances. A thorough characterization of the spinterfaces properties together with their implementation in real devices will provide us with valuable knowledge about the role of interfaces in devices. The technological potential of such a result represents a major step towards the realization of competitive organic nanodevices. The ultimate goal of DELICE is offering an interdisciplinary training to a promising young female researcher.

Waste heat—the rejected by-product of all energy conversion processes—remains a huge and unexplored reservoir of green energy. It is estimated that two-thirds of the 160 TWh required for global power consumption is lost to the environment each year. Converting even a fraction of this wasted energy into electricity at the cost of 10 cents per kWh would generate a new EUR 1.0 trillion industry—creating jobs, boosting the economy, and increasing energy efficiency. A scalable preparative strategy towards inexpensive thermoelectric (TE) materials would allow direct heat to electricity conversion to be widely implemented. Realizing this ambition will require a new approach, as current methods rely on rare, toxic, and expensive materials to produce rigid and inefficient TE devices. To overcome these shortcomings, the ANTHEM project aims to develop a robust strategy towards advanced hybrid organic-inorganic TE materials through the novel concept of vapor phase infiltration (VPI). VPI presents a truly novel strategy to fuse state-of-the-art organic-inorganic TE materials at the nanoscale—opening the possibility for flexible, low cost and even transparent TE materials. Moreover, VPI is an easily scalable vapor-phase process that could extend to a large variety of inorganic/polymer combinations. In this project specific targets will include optimizing the degree of control in scattering engineering, size/ interface composition and spatial distribution of the inorganic phase, key factors for maximizing thermoelectric performance. With an optimal blend of expertise in materials chemistry, characterization and theory from leading European research groups, ANTHEM will deliver a roadmap towards low-cost and abundant hybrid TE materials that incorporate metal oxides, sulfides, or selenides. The success this project has great potential to advance not only the field of VPI, but hybrid TE too—creating concrete possibilities for the critically important waste-to-energy industry.

The surge of electronic devices in our everyday lives poses severe challenges to the sustainability of our societies. Spintronics stands at the forefront of solutions considered today by leading industrial actors to drastically improve information and communications systems' scalability and power efficiency. In this field, most of the efforts focus on information storage based on ferromagnets (FM), readout via spin-charge interconversion (SCI) phenomena, i.e. the conversion of a spin polarisation into a detectable electrical signal, or vice-versa. However, improvements in SCI efficiency are still necessary and solutions for the electrical writing of FM still need to be more efficient and reliable. Ferroelectrics (FE), which naturally break inversion symmetry, may allow an efficient SCI when interfaced with other materials. Since FE also carry information (their electric polarisation) switchable at ultra-low power, they are ideal candidates to replace FM as the new core elements of spintronics. So far, only a few reports demonstrated the FE control of SCI at oxide interfaces or in bulk semiconductors. Due to their richness and 2D nature, van der Waals (vdW) materials and notably graphene play an increasingly important role in spintronics research, and vdW FE could be a game changer for the field, although they are still under-investigated. REVOLT aims to study these novel FE and to achieve the non-volatile electric control of SCI in graphene proximitized with FE. Structural, electrical, and magnetotransport characterisations will be performed on atomically sharp FE/graphene stacks patterned with advanced nano-lithography techniques for which the host institution is expert. Based on these efforts, REVOLT will shed new light on fundamental physics phenomena and evaluate the potential for a paradigm change in spintronics applications while providing high-quality, interdisciplinary research and transversal skills to a young researcher for the development of his career.

Repair or replacement of tissue and organ functions lost due to age, disease or damage represents one of the most urgent medical needs of our aging society. The NanoReMedi Consortium will contribute to addressing this fundamentally important issue by using a new and efficient scientific approach relying on the design, preparation, characterization and validation of conceptually innovative peptide-based functional nanomaterials for regenerative medicine applications. Specifically, NanoReMedi will tackle three highly relevant case studies: “Tissue engineered vascular grafts to replace damaged peripheral arteries”, “Stem-cell based regenerative medicine for bone and cartilage repair” and “Facing with implantation failure” this last addressed to overcome bacterial severe infections. As an equally important goal, the NanoReMedi Consortium aims to build a world-class doctoral educational model in the field of nanomaterials applied to regenerative nanomedicine, through a strategically designed Academia-Industry interplay. To this end, 6 Beneficiaries, one Associated Partner linked to a beneficiary and 12 non-academic associated partners will join their forces to: i)create a highly innovative research network for training a new generation of 13 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) with strong employment potential, aimed at studying and developing “Functional Nano-Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine”; ii)establish a robust structure for long-term research cooperation between a pool of leading Universities and Enterprises, for broadening and strengthening the knowledge and skills of DCs accessing the nanoscience-area from adjacent disciplines (such as chemistry, material sciences and bioinformatics); iii)building a solid foundation for long-term European excellence in medical nanotechnology via dissemination of research/training outcomes - through cross-network secondments, Summer Schools workshops and transferable skills modules, and of the best practice generated by NanoReMedi.