Project description
Real-time evaluation of nanomaterial production at industrial scale
Advances in nanotechnology and materials science have led to an array of novel nanomaterials and thin films with a variety of potential applications. Characterisation of the dimensions, structure and chemical composition of these nanomaterials is central for optimising their functional performance. Towards this goal, the EU-funded NanoQI project aims to advance X-ray characterisation techniques such as X-ray diffraction analysis and X-ray reflectometry for industrial access. Although widely employed in research, technical limitations hamper the use of these techniques in industrial material development and production assessment processes. The NanoQI technology's capacity for real-time evaluation of nanomaterial properties in industrial applications will improve reproducibility and yield and upscale nanomaterial production.
Objective
Functional performances of nano-materials and thin films with nano-scale thickness are determined not only by material selection but also by their nano-physical dimensions, nano-scale structure and their nano-scale chemical composition. Precise characterisation of these properties is critical to develop new functional nano-materials and optimise processes toward higher performance, improved reproducibility and yield and up-scaling to larger quantities. X-ray characterisation techniques such as X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) or X-ray reflectometry (XRR) are widely used in research laboratories for this task but are rarely used in industrial material development and assessment of production processes due to technical limitations and required high level expertise.
The project NanoQI targets the development of an industry-suited, real-time and in-line capable technique to characterise nano-structure and nano-dimensions of (thin-film) nano-materials by optimisation of area-detector based XRR and XRD concepts and their multi-modal combination with a novel wide-angle hyper-spectral imaging (HSI) technique. Therewith, NanoQI will provide industry access to real time evaluation of nano-material geometry, structure and morphology and correlative imaging of deviations of these properties.
NanoQI technology will be demonstrated in three relevant industrial application scenarios: in-situ process assessment in manufacturing of perovskite solar cells; large-area vacuum roll-to-roll coating of polymer webs and industrial atomic layer deposition of dielectric and gas barrier layers.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energysolar energy
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
- natural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicsgeometry
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materials
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
80686 Munchen
Germany