The project "FENMAG" relates to the current need to develop new nanomaterials for the production of permanent magnets of high power and with a reduced ecological footprint throughout their life cycle. The issue of permanent magnets has become strategic again this last decade. Magnets are made up of magnetic materials called "hard", that is to say with strong spontaneous magnetization and strong anisotropy, capable of storing strong magnetic energies per unit of mass and volume, and thus reducing the quantities of necessary materials for the intended applications. To date, medium and high performance magnets require rare earth-based materials such as SmCo or NdFeB. The latter must be doped with dysprosium at prohibitive cost to maintain their performance level up to 100-150 ° C. With the development of electrification systems, the production of electricity from renewable energies (wind, maritime), hybrid vehicles, the need in terms of volume is growing very rapidly. Military applications, with the increase in on-board electrical power, the increase in the number of electrically controlled components do not escape this trend. However, rare earth resources are limited, expensive and have become a virtual monopoly of China. To reduce this dependency, it is necessary to produce new magnetic phases with increased performances, and to implement alternatives to the use of rare earths. To meet this fundamental need, the FENMAG project aims to produce iron-nitride magnetic single-domain nanoparticles (a '' - Fe16N2 phase) that could be integrated as new bricks in permanent magnets. The targeted phase a '' - Fe16N2 has serious advantages in view of the desired properties: - a spontaneous magnetization superior to that of massive Fe. - the strongest anisotropy for a material not comprising heavy metal, noble metal or rare earth. - the absence of a risk of diffuse pollution in the event of dissemination, and of non-recycling. - the lowest cost in terms of the elements that compose it. - a theoretical stored energy potential of 135 MGOe, superior to the best materials doped with rare earths (60 MGOe) To carry out this ambitious project, FENMAG associates 3 Toulouse laboratories that have complementary expertise in nanomaterials science: the LCC for the chemical synthesis of perfectly calibrated metallic and magnetic nanoparticles, the CEMES for the study of the chemical and structural order and the SPS (spark plasma sintering) sintering processes, and the LPCNO for the study of the magnetic properties of nanoparticles. The objectives of the project are: - to develop a new, unambiguous and reproducible chemical synthesis pathway of nanoparticles models of iron nitride '' - Fe16N2 (composition, chemical and atomic order controlled) - Shape these nanoparticles to make a small magnet based on iron nitride a '' - Fe16N2 (mass 1g). - Qualify this phase for the manufacture of magnets, potentially in the intermediate zone between rare earth magnets and ferrites. - lay the groundwork for a scale-up of the production of these nanoparticles and facilitate the production of small magnets. The process will involve a SME company for the scale-up phase.

Emerging communication technologies like 5G or Near Field Communication call for voltage tunable ferroelectric (FE) film capacitors to work at higher frequencies or lower voltage, thus requiring the reduction of the FE thickness. Unfortunately, two interface-related phenomena, the FE “dead layer” and leakage current, impede this evolution. Recent encouraging ab initio calculations showed the importance of the chemical bonding, polar discontinuity and distortion mismatch at electrode/FE perovskite interfaces for polarization stabilization and Schottky barrier height (SBH) adjustment. A systematic interface engineering using Combinatorial Pulsed Laser Deposition will chemically modulate electrode/(Ba,Sr)TiO3 interfaces of industrial capacitors. Advanced spectroscopy and microscopy methods coupled with first-principles calculations will help to understand the chemical, structural and electronic mechanisms controlling the SBH and FE polarization at the interface. TRL 6 industrial prototype varactors with the optimized interfaces will be tested against 5G and NFC specifications.

The DALHAI project aims at developing compact all-optical Arithmetic and Logic Units (ALU) exploiting the spatial and spectral distributions of 2D confined plasmons modes in planar cavities tailored in ultrathin Au or Ag crystals. Yet, the optimization of the logic gate output contrast, the definition of the logic function reconfiguration schemes and the generalization of this concept towards complex ALU is a non-intuitive challenge. - - - DALHAI addresses the ALU design challenge with a four-stage strategy that relies, first, on the mode symmetry considerations that led to the successful numerical and experimental results obtained on the crystalline gold double hexagon (DH) devices. Second, evolutionary optimization will be implemented to efficiently survey the parameters space (shape, polarization, ...). Yet the discovery of complex ALU configurations will be limited by the intuitive starting points. Third, to overcome this limitation, DALHAI will develop powerful Hybrid Artificial Intelligence (HAI) tools and interface them with optical simulations and experimental data. Fourth, once trained, the HAI will propose device geometries and excitation protocols to solve the inverse design of complex reconfigurable ALUs. Nanofabrication, simulations, optical benchmarking, operation and reconfiguration of HAI-proposed ALUs will be performed. The experimental fabrication, optical testing and the numerical simulations of plasmonic ALUs will be performed by CEMES (CNRS, Toulouse) and ICB (CNRS, Dijon). CIAD (Univ. Bourgogne, Dijon) will develop the HAI in strong interaction with all partners. - - - DALHAI is structured in four work packages. WP1 is dedicated to management, dissemination and technological transfer actions. WP2 is the nano-optical backbone of the project in which the design, nanofabrication, optical testing, electro-plasmonic addressing and GDM simulations of simple 1st (DH-based) and 2nd (modified geometry) generation plasmonic ALU devices are implemented. WP3 is dedicated to the development of the connectionist and symbolic AI tools and their fusion into the Hybrid AI with continuous interactions with the numerical and experimental implementation of optimized plasmonic modal ALU (evolutionary optimization, 3rd generation). In WP4 the HAI will be deployed to propose structure and operation schemes of complex ALUs (4th generation) with associated experimental and numerical optical benchmarking, the HAI output will be qualified and specifications on the direct interfacing of the HAI with hardware and GDM routines will be established. - - - DALHAI targets two sets of science-to-technology breakthroughs with potential impact covered by specific dissemination and technology transfer actions. (1) The experimental nano-optical concepts of modal plasmonic gates and its generalization to ALU is an unprecedented holistic approach with which DALHAI ambitions to set a radically new and technologically relevant paradigm. DALHAI will disseminate its results at the crossroads of nano-optics and IT in high impact journals, in impactful conferences, in national and EU networks. (2) DALHAI will adapt HAI to assist the design of the complex ALU to step up in complexity, numbers of input/output and reconfigurability beyond intuitive design. DALHAI ambitions to enhance the innovation capacity by merging interdisciplinary fields and to establish a national and European leadership in HAI-reinforced nano-photonics. In this regards, DALHAI aims at a software maturity at TRL7. The machine learning part will be available for tests but the pioneering interdisciplinary approach of HAI in nanophotonics will be the subject of an invention declaration. We will establish an exploitation plan beyond the project duration with the technology transfer accelerator office SATT. Throughout the project a Wiki plus a public website will be maintained to share data but also as a promotional and educational tools towards the general public.

The emergence and selection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is an ever increasing Public Health problem. Microbial adhesion and subsequent biofilm formation are at the origin of hospital-acquired infections, often leading to septic complications and lethal issues, and entailing large economical losses for the health-care systems. This threat is of particular concern when compared with the very limited number of new antimicrobial agents in the pipeline of the pharmaceutical industry. BENDIS project is conceived with objectives pointing this urgent problem. It aims to exploit in an original manner the antimicrobial properties of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) embedded in silica. Our ambition is to develop “nano-safer by design” coupled systems, intended to provide controlled antimicrobial activity of AgNPs over long time. The BENDIS project objectives are: (i) to identify the key molecular mechanisms responsible for adhesion of microorganisms on dielectric surfaces, (ii) to assess the conditioning role of proteins in the microbial adhesion/proliferation, (iii) to reveal as how the embedded in silica AgNPs alter the protein/cell adhesion and biofilm formation through the release of Ag+ and/or AgNPs and (iv) to evaluate the controlled antimicrobial efficiency of tailored by AgNPs surfaces. BENDIS project benefits from the synergy of knowledge and expertise of scientists from three academic partners in Toulouse: material scientists, physicists and physico-chemists from LAPLACE, material scientists, physicists and biochemists from CEMES, and microbiologists and chemists from LGC. A significant impact of the project shall be to suggest strategic orientations to the scientific and engineering communities involved in the conception and design of materials and devices for the medical domain. It is expected from BENDIS project to give a powerful impulse to the conception of AgNPs-tailored antimicrobial surfaces with reduced health and environmental impacts, to be applied as biocontamination inhibitors in the health-care domain and globally in the Public Health. These AgNPs-tailored nanocomposite layers will also be of particular interest to coating manufacturers for industrial sectors requiring preservation of the sanitary state in confined or inaccessible spaces. Thus BENDIS project is in line with both the national action plan on Antimicrobial resistance and the one developed by the World Health Organization, as well as is replying to epidemic or pandemic risks for emergent pathogens, including SARS-CoV2.

The electric and magnetic fields in nanostructured semiconductor materials are affected by light absorption. The absorbed photons create charge carriers which induce changes in the local internal fields. For example, in III-N heterostructures used for light emitting diodes (LEDs), the internal electric field resulting from the quantum stark effect is screened by light absorption. In Cu(In,Ga)NSe solar cells (CIGS) light induces an electric field across the hetero-junction. These effects have been extensively studied on a macroscopic or mesoscopic scale. However, the behavior of a nanostructured material under light excitation is ruled by variation of the structural properties, such as defect density, strain, chemical inhomogeneity, low dimensionality (confinement) or interfaces. Therefore, studying the effect of light at the atomic scale is fundamental to understand, characterize and optimize their optical response. Imaging light absorption at the atomic scale will deeply increase our knowledge of optically active nanostructures. Due to their picometer wavelength, fast electron imaging is not limited by diffraction and can be used to observe atomic structures. Different methods based on electron excitation are used to study optically active nanostructures. For example, cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy monitors the optical response of these materials at the nanometer scale. It was used to study the role of defects14 and polarity15 in III-N nanowire luminescence, as well as the effect of grain boundaries for carrier diffusion in CIGS materials. However, CL spectroscopy is as of yet unable to give a measurement of fundamental optical properties, such as quantum efficiency, non-linear carrier dynamics and absorption spectrum in a spatially resolved fashion. All these properties have been extensively studied with photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy above the diffraction limit. Electron holography is commonly used to image the electric and magnetic fields of nanoobjects and several studies have been performed on III-N nanowires and solar cells, but until now it was not used to study the effect of optical excitation at the atomic scale. In ECHOMELO, we propose to determine the link between the atomic structure and light absorption efficiency at the nanoscale which is one of the key parameters for many semiconductors nanostructures. We aim to study the light absorption at the nanoscale, combining under light excitation electron holography imaging and luminescence spectroscopy (CL and PL). We will thus develop a light injection system on the sample into a transmission electron microscope designed for electron holography. Two types of materials will be investigated, III-N nanowires and CIGS solar cells. Each representing a class of materials that will greatly benefit from the imaging of light absorption at the nanoscale. Indeed, III-N nanowires are known for their strong internal electric field 2 MV/cm (i.e. 100 mV per atomic layer) as well as the sensitivity of this field to carriers. In the case of light excitation of non-contacted solar cells, the local short-circuit voltage can be derived from the accumulation of excited carriers.