APPLICATION OF NANOSTRUCTURING, NANOMATERIALS AND MICRO-NANO-INTEGRATION FOR IMPROVED COMPONENTS AND SYSTEM'S PERFORMANCE

The Institute of Micro-and Nanotechnology MacroNano (R) at Technische Universitat Ilmenau was founded in 2005 to provide a structural base for interdisciplinary research ranging from basic to applied and application-oriented research with a strong focus on nano- and microsystems. It comprises the competences of several engineering and natural science groups of the university. The paper will cover current results from research projects in nanostructuring, the synthesis of specific nanomaterials (1D, 2D, 3D), their functionalization and integration in microsystems as well as application examples. Among the processes of nanostructuring template based technologies such as anodic aluminum oxide and colloidal crystal template, self-organized maskless reactive ion etching, controlled dewetting methods, nanoxerography and high performance single nanometer lithography will be introduced. The latter opens up new options to further scale down semiconductor structures. Many of these processes are used to synthesize structures with high regularity, defined orientation and shape. Nanoparticles, nanocomposites, nanorods, nanopillars, nanoneedle arrays and nanopores can thus be tailored in size and functionalized by additional processes. Due to their nature these structures are suitable to drastically improve surface or volume related effects which will be demonstrated on the basis of highly efficient gas sensors, high performance batteries, supercapacitors and solar energy conversion devices.