grant agreement number - european commission :...

Grant Agreement Number: 224525

Project Acronym: NEMSIC

Project Title: Hybrid Nano-Electro-Mechanical / Integrated Circuit

Systems for Sensing and Power Management Applications

Funding Scheme: Collaborative project

Thematic Area: Information and Communication Technologies

Project start date: 01/06/2008

Deliverable D6.3: 2nd Update to the Plan for using and dissemination of foreground

Nature1: R

Dissemination level2: RE

Due date: Month: M46

Date of delivery: M46

Partners involved: EPFL, SCIPROM, HON, IMEC, IMEC-NL, SOU, CEA-LETI, All

Authors: Antonios Bazigos, Cornel Cobianu, Sywert Brongersma, Cécilia Dupré, Kirsten

Leufgen

Document version: 1

1 R = Report, P = Prototype, D = Demonstrator, O = Other

2 PU = Public, PP = Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services, RE =

Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services), CO = Confidential, only

for the members of the consortium (including the Commission Services)

NEMSIC: Grant Agreement n. 224525 Final Report – Final Version – July 2012

2

Revision history

Version Date Author Comment

0.1 01.09 Dimitrios Tsamados First issue

0.2 01.09 Paolo Dainesi Added EC compliant format and

comments

0.3 02.09 Cornel Cobianu Added HON contribution

0.4 23.02.09 Cornel Cobianu Added another HON contribution

0.5 27.02.09 Sywert Brongersma Included contribution form IMEC-

NL

0.6 10.07.09 Cécilia Dupré LETI Contribution

1 31.07.09 Kirsten Leufgen Completion and polish

2.0 25.08.10 Paolo Dainesi Added web site activities in year 2

3.0 04.06.12 Antonios Bazigos

Final Update: added details for the 2

workshops, web site update, journals,

conferences, patents.


3

Table of Contents

Revision history ......................................................................................................................... 2

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 4

Section A (public) - Dissemination of foreground..................................................................... 4

Dissemination activities carried out or confirmed .............................................................................. 5

Template A (Public) ..................................................................................................................... 21

Section B (confidential) - Use of foreground ........................................................................... 30

Template B2 (Confidential) .......................................................................................................... 32

Exploitable Foreground............................................................................................................ 34


4

Executive Summary

The objective of this deliverable is to define the dissemination and exploitation of the project

results and products by the partners. Dissemination activities and strategies for the envisaged

scientific results of the project will include presentations to international conferences,

symposia and workshops as well as publications in peer-reviewed specialised scientific

journals. Vulgarised versions of some achievements and results of NEMSIC will be presented

to the general public through the dedicated web site (www.nemsic.org), as well as through

press releases and publications on the Internet or in magazines.

Each technical workpackage provides a list of the various dissemination events, which are

selected in order to provide the best visibility possible to the technological achievements

within the framework of the NEMSIC project and to match the level of the presentations to

the targeted audience.

Partners with strong commercial interests, especially Honeywell and IMEC-NL but also

CEA-LETI present also their exploitation plans, describing their interests in the project results

and how they intend to exploit them in future product development or technology licensing.

Introduction

The present report is to be considered as the “Plan for Use and Dissemination of Foreground”

which is due at the end of the project. As such it is an open document to which all partners

can contribute as soon as they have reached decisions concerning their exploitation strategy or

achieved dissemination activities. In the future years the document will be regularly updated

by all partners.

The text parts in italic and blue all along the document, reported from the “Guidance notes on

Project Reporting” of the European Commission, are intended as guidelines on how this

deliverable should be filled during the project duration and until its end.

Section A (public) - Dissemination of foreground

The dissemination plan extends up to the ending date of the project wherever that is possible,

but one has to note that updates are already envisaged for M18 and M36. In this report we

expect to have publishable results just before or right after the major milestones and the

deadlines of the deliverables in each workpackage.

The dissemination of the foreseeable scientific results has been organized by workpackage in

order to take into account the particularities of each WP (domains of research, different

milestones and dates of deliverables, more or less dependence on the technological steps and

risks).


5

Dissemination activities carried out or confirmed

The dissemination activities already carried out or confirmed during the project duration are

the following:

The project presentation (D6.8) has been prepared as a collaborative work between EPFL

and SCIPROM. It is a general overview of the project written in journalistic style to

promote the project in different occasions. The presentation is available as a separate pdf

file and can be downloaded from the public area of the NEMSIC web-site.

At the very beginning of the project SOU has prepared a press release, which appeared on

their web-site as well as on the CORDIS new web-site and RSS feed.

See link:http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&RCN=29617

The press release is also reported in the NEMSIC web-site news section. In the future

such actions will be taken by the project coordinator, in the name of all partners, when the

first significant results will be achieved by the consortium.

The NEMSIC coordinator, Prof. A.M. Ionescu, was invited to act as lecturer in an

international summer school organized by EPFL in June 09. His talk was about Vibrating

nanowires for advanced sensing and presented to international students the concepts of

NEMSIC versus state of the art in the field. The detailed program of this Summer school

is shown below:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&RCN=29617


6

Cornel Cobianu, the NEMSIC exploitation manager, disseminated some of the

expectations and challenges of the NEMSIC based gas sensors at the IEEE semiconductor

conference at Sinaia, Romania, October 09. A short abstract:


7

Nano-scale resonant sensors represent an emerging research domain built on

the foundation of micro-electro-mechanical systems, which are thus pushed to

their limits on size, technology and design and interrogation electronics. These

nano-devices are going to become the next generation of low power, low cost,

high sensitivity, ultra-miniaturized sensors for a new type of applications such

as large wireless sensor networks of the future. Even if today, they are mainly

in our imagination, at the level of mass detection, resonant nano-structures

have already proved a mass sensing resolution of a few zeptograms/Hz, in

ultrahigh vacuum and low temperature laboratory set-up. This is stimulating

the challenging expectation of ultra-high sensitivity in gas sensing, even if the

available sensing area is ultra-small and gases atoms to be detected are

“scarce” above that sensing surface. Starting from such intuitive thinking, it is

the purpose of our paper to describe requirements for the resonant structures to

become real resonant gas (NOT mass) sensors, of tomorrow. To reach there,

we think it is compulsory to get enhanced gas sensitivity and selectivity,

preserving high quality factor, high frequency, even if they have to operate in

“the field” at ambient pressure and temperature in the presence of a large

number of noise sources.

A paper presented by Cornel Cobianu was furthermore accepted for the CAS 2009

conference:

“Nano-Scale Resonant Sensors For Gas And Bio Detection: Expectations

And Challenges”, authors: C. Cobianu1, B. Serban

1, M. Mihaila

1, V. Dumitru

1,

F.A. Hassani2, Y. Tsuchiya

2, H. Mizuta

2, V. Cherman

3, I. De Wolf

3, V.

Petrescu4, J. Santana

4, C. Dupre

5, E. Ollier

5, T. Ernst

5, P. Andreucci

5, L.

Duraffourg5, D. Tsamados

6, A.M. Ionescu

6,

1Honeywell Romania, Bucharest,

Romania, 2Univ. of Southampton, UK,

3IMEC-REMO-MSR, Leuven,

Belgium, 4IMEC-Holst Centre, Eindhoven, The Netherlands,

5CEA LETI,

MINATEC, Grenoble, France, 6EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.

A joint paper was published in the Annals of Romanian scientists. The details of the

publication are:

Cobianu, C, Serban, B, Petrescu, V, Pettine, J, Karabacak, D, Offerman, P,

Brongesma, S, Cherman, V, Armini, S, Arab Hassani, Faezeh, Ghiass,

Mohammad Adel, Tsuchiya, Yoshishige, Mizuta, Hiroshi, Dupre, C,

Duraffourg, L, Koumela, A, Mercier, D, Ollier, E, Tsamados, D and Ionescu, A

(2010) Towards nanoscale resonant gas sensors. Annals of the Academy of

Romanian Scientists Series of Science and Technology of Information, 3, 39-

60.

Abstract: In this paper, we present preliminary results in the field of resonant

Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems (NEMS), where the gas/bio detection is

performed by the frequency shift due to mass loading of the adsorbed analyte.

The sensitivity of the resonant NEMS chemical sensors based on SOI-

CMOSFET technology platform and a given sensor geometry is theoretically

proven to be equal to I Hz/zeptogram in mass loading for the case of a novel

detector circuit based on MOSFET transistor The minimum frequency shift of

1 ppm is designed for the case of an readout consisting of a MEMS/IVEMS

based oscillator. Piezoresistive detection circuits performed in RN CMOSFET

technology are also investigated due to their attractiveness for integrated


8

resonant NEMS sensors. Surface functionalization for NO2 detection with

CNT moieties is described, in accordance with the HSAB theory. Also,

localized functionalization with IVII2 self-assembled monolayer followed by

biotin attachment or Au nanoparticles decoration is experimentally proven

within SOI-CMOS technology. Novel reliability challenges due to Wan Der

Waals and Casimir forces acting in the nanometer gaps between different parts

are identified. Finally, the noise limitations for the minimum detectable mass in

resonant NEMS are shown. The adsorption-desorption noise on the

functionalized surface appears to be the most important, and this may be in

agreement with the kinetic theory of gases giving us a first indication of the

number collisions per second per our sensing surface, in the range of 2∙109.

Note that the article is available online at the address:

http://nemsic.org/news/assets/NEMSIC_Romanian_Accademy.PDF

An oral presentation to the Romanian Academy of the NEMSIC project has been given by

Honeywell Romania at the 9th National Seminar of Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies

organized by the Romanian Academy on 16 March 2010. The name of this talk was

“Novel concepts for CO2 detection by differential resonant nanosensing” and the

following abstract, and an oral speech, were agreed within the NEMSIC consortium, to be

presented.

Due to the excellent capabilities of detecting mass loading in the range of

hundreds of zeptograms, the nano-scale resonant sensors are envisaged for the

detection of the ultra-small gas concentrations, in agreement with the exigent

standards for the air quality monitoring. It is the purpose of our presentation to

show novel concepts for CO2 detection by means of resonant differential

principles applied to silicon nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), where a

vibrating functionalized nano-beam is changing its resonance frequency as a

function of adsorbed CO2 gas coming from the ambient. Such future resonant

nanosensors for CO2 detections will be built by means of CMOS-SOI silicon

technology, where hundreds of thousands of NEMS devices can be performed

on the same wafer, and where sensor and electronics may be on the same chip,

as an ultimate target. The novelty of our approach comes from the original

chemical functionalization of the silicon surface and by the use of the reference

sensing monolayer, which will have the same physical properties like the

sensing layer, but no sensing capabilities. Such an all-differential sensing

principle where a reference layer is added on the surface is solving the prior-art

drift issues specific to differential resonant chemical sensors, where the

reference loop had only an uncoated surface, which could not eliminate the

humidity and aging effects of sensing layer from the sensor response. The

chemical design of the sensing monolayer with main focus on the functional

sensing group was based on Bronsted –Lowry theory. The proposed sensing

layers contain CO2 sensitive terminal groups such as 1,8 diazabicyclo[5,4,0]

undec-7-ene (DBU) or 1,5 diaza [3,4,0]-non-5-ene (DBN) The reference layer

for the DBN and DBU based sensing layer are obtained by the reaction of DBN

and DBU moieties with HCl in order to inactivate the DBU and DBN moieties

which are CO2 sensitive. This is performed by selective direct printing of

liquid HCl only on the reference beam as a terminal step of the

functionalization process performed for the CO2 sensing layer.


9

Two workshops have taken place to foster the exchange with potential end users one of

which was organized in Japan by EPFL and SOU and a second one in EUROPE by

UNIGE and SCIPROM.

The European workshop was called Nano-Electro-Mechanical Devices for Integrated

Sensing and Switching and was organised as a satellite workshop to ESSDERC/ESSCIRC

2010, on September 17th, 2010. It was chaired by D. Tsamados and A.M. Ionescu form

the EPFL side and by H. Mizuta from the University of Southampton.

Here follows the abstract that was prepared for the meeting objectives:

To detect a carcinogen, a pharmaceutically active compound or toxic gases in

the environment within seconds thanks to a handheld device on an electronic

chip: such a revolution that may be made possible through the integration of

so-called NEMS, miniaturized electromechanical structures in which at least

one dimension is of nanometre scale. The devices targeted in the framework of

the FP7 STREP project NEMSIC at the heart of the "intelligent sensor system"

are suspended nanowires excited to vibrate at their resonance frequencies. The

wire is chemically or biologically functionalized to make it selective for target

molecules like carcinogens. Binding of target molecules leads to an increase in

the mass of the wire which in turn will change its resonance frequency and

vibrate at a lower frequency (think of a violin: the thicker the string the lower

the tone). The workshop will include state-of-the-art progress reports on

NEMS devices and applications, with invited keynotes from USA and Japan

and the detailed technical reports on the status of NEMSIC research.

The meeting consisted of 15 interesting talks, including keynote speakers invited by the

consortium outside of the NEMSIC partnership, from Cornell University, Tokyo Institute

of Technology and the VU University of Amsterdam. Below one can read the program of

the day:

8.45 – 9.00: A.M. Ionescu, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,

Switzerland “Opening and short overview of NEMSIC project”

9.00 – 9.30: Keynote 1: S. Bhave, Cornell University, USA “Hybrid NEMS

Resonators”

9.30 – 10.00: Y. Tsuchiya, F. Arab Hassani, M. A. Ghiass, Z. Moktadir, H.

Mizuta Silvia Armini, M. Carli, A. Maestre Caro, V. Cherman, University of

Southampton, UK, IMEC, Belgium “Suspended silicon nanowire sensing

based on conductance and mass detection”

10.00 – 10.30: Coffee Break

10.30 – 11.00: E. Ollier, CEA-LETI, France “Towards integration of

Nanowires with FDSOI transistors: from design to technology”

11.00 – 11.30: D. Grogg, S. Bartch, D. Tsamados, A.M. Ionescu Ecole

Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland “Resonant body FinFETs”

11.30 – 12.00: V. Petrescu, IMEC. The Netherlands “Circuit design for

NEMS/MEMS resonator gas sensors”

12.00 – 13.00: Lunch


10

13.00 – 13.30: Keynote 2: Shunri Oda, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.

“NEMS Scaled silicon NEM hybrid devices”

13.30 – 13.50: B. Serban and C. Cobianu ACS Sensors &Wireless Laboratory

Bucharest, Honeywell Romania SRL “Novel concepts for NO2 detection by

differential resonant nanosensing”

13.50 – 14.10: D. Bertrand Dpt of Neuroscience, Medical Faculty &

HiQscreen, Switzerland “NEMS in biological applications”

14.10 – 14.30: D. Tsamados Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,

Switzerland. “Modeling and simulation tools for the development of nanoscale

suspended-gate MOSFETs (NEMFET) and Vibrating-body FETs (VBFET) for

bulk-Si and SOI technologies”

14.30-14.50: Coffee break

14.50 – 15.20: Keynote 3: Dr. August. B. Smit, VU University,

“Acetylcholine binding proteins: structural models of the extracellular domain

of the nicotinic receptors”

15:20- 15.40 S. Armini, M. Carli, 2, V. Cherman, A. Maestre Caro, J.

Moonens, P. Neutens, J. Ogi, S. Oda, Y. Tsuchiya, H. Mizuta, IMEC, LaNN,

KUL, TIT, SOU, “Nanoscale Silicon Nanowires Surface Functionalization and

Characterization for Sensing Applications”

15.40 – 16.00: M. Enachescu and S. Cotofana, TUD “Suspended Gate -Field

Effect Transistor (SG-FET) Based Advanced Power Management in CMOS

ICs”

16.00 – 16.20: A. Magrez, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,

Switzerland “New developments in carbon nanotubes synthesis for NEMs

application”.

16.20 – 16.40: D. Aquaviva, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,

Switzerland “CNT NEM switches for RF applications”.

16.40: Closing

The location of the Japanese workshop was chosen so as to tighten the networking

between Europe and Asia within Nanosciences. The International Symposium entitled

“Advanced Hybrid Nano Devices” (IS-AHND) was jointly organized on October 4-5,

2011 in Tokyo, Japan, by JSPS Global COE Program PICE, NEMSIC consortium and

IEEE EDS Japan Chapter. In addition Guardian Angels Pilot was represented in Japan at

this event that will also serve to bridge European and Japanese research communities in

the field of low power technologies and enable the first contacts for future cooperation.

Beyond the traditional used of silicon CMOS for high performance computing, novel

applications in logic, memory and sensor devices will be reported in this event based on

the fusion of CMOS technology with MEMS technology. Hybrid technology with new

materials or variables (mechanical, photonic, spin, etc.) is essential for future advance of

CMOS technology. The purpose of this international symposium was to bring together

world's leading scientists in the field of silicon nanodevices and discuss about future

directions of hybrid nanodevice technology.

The co-organizers of the event were Shunri Oda, Hiroshi Iwai from Tokyo Institute of

Technology and Adrian Ionescu, project leader of NEMSIC project, from EPFL.


11

This meeting lasted for two days, having a little more than half a day dedicated to the

NEMSIC partners. In total 24 talks were delivered out of which 8 were by NEMSIC

members. The full programme of the workshop is following:

Tuesday, 4 October

Opening Session

09:30 - 09:40 Kenichi Iga (President, Tokyo Tech.) Welcome Remark

09:40 - 09:50 Shinichiro Kimura (Vice Chair, IEEE EDS Japan

Chapter/ Hitachi Ltd) "Greetings from IEEE EDS"

Session 1

09:50 - 10:30 Tak H. Ning (IBM) "On SOI CMOS as Technology

Platform for SoC and Hybrid Device and Function Integration"

10:30 - 11:10 Akira Nishiyama (Toshiba) "New channel engineering for

the low power CMOS technology"

11:10 - 11:50 Carlos Diaz (TSMC) "Power-constrained era --

implications on Logic Technologies"

11:50 - 13:00 Lunch Break

Session 2

13:00 - 13:40 Dim-Lee Kwong (IME, Singapore) "Bringing the Benefits

of Moore's Law to Medicine"

13:40 - 14:20 Simon Deleonibus (LETI, France) "Challenges and

Opportunities of Technologies and Components for Diversified Future Silicon

Platforms"

14:20 - 15:00 Cor Claeys (IMEC) "Nanoelectronics as Innovation

Driver for a Green Sustainable World"

15:00 - 15:20 Break

Session 3

15:20 - 15:55 Hiromichi Ohashi (AIST) "Role of Nano-technology for

Integrated Power Electronics System"

15:55 - 16:30 Hitoshi Wakabayashi (Sony) "CMOS-Device Technology

Benchmarks for Low-Power Logic LSIs"

16:30 - 17:00 Ken Uchida (Tokyo Tech.) "Carrier mobility in heavily-

doped nanoscale SOI films"

17:00 - 17:30 Hiroshi Iwai (Tokyo Tech.) "Miniaturization and future

prospects of Si devices"

Poster Session 1

17:30 - 18:30 Poster Presentation

18:30 - 20:30 Reception at Royal Blue Hall

Wednesday, 5 October

Session 4


12

09:15 - 10:00 Hiroyuki Fujita (U. Tokyo) "MEMS Integration with

CMOS and Beyond"

10:00 - 10:30 Joost Van Beek (NXP) "Sensors and actuators at NXP:

bringing more than Moore to CMOS"

10:30 - 10:45 Break

Session 5

10:45 - 11:15 Kazuya Masu (Tokyo Tech.) "Challenges of

Heterogeneous Integration on CMOS"

11:15 - 11:45 William I. Milne (Cambridge Univ. U.K.) "ZnO Based

SAW and FBAR devices for Lab-on-a chip Applications"

11:45 - 12:15 Shunri Oda (Tokyo Tech.) "NeoSilicon based

nanoelectromechanical information devices"

12:15 - 13:30 Lunch Break

Session 6

13:30 - 13:50 Adrian Ionescu (EPFL) "Overview of NEMSIC project:

low power integrated sensing with Nano-Electro-Mechanical structures"

13:50 - 14:10 Hiroshi Mizuta (Southampton) "Silicon nanowires for

advanced sensing: Electrical and electromechanical characteristics and

functionalisation technology"

14:10 - 14:30 Julia Pettine and Violeta Pterescu (IMEC-NL) "Circuit

design for NEMS/MEMS resonator gas sensors"

14:30 - 14:50 Sorin Cotofana (Delft Univ. Tech., Netherland)

"Advanced NEMFET-based Power Management for Deep Sub-Micron

Integrated Circuits"

14:50 - 15:10 Daniel Bertrand (HIQSCREEN) "From biology to NEMS:

the importance of new sensor developments"

15:10 - 15:30 Eric Ollier (CEA-LETI) "Co-integration of single-crystal

NEMS with FDSOI circuits for sensing and power management applications"

15:30 - 16:00 Cornel Cobianu and Bogdan Serban (Honeywell,

Romania) "A possible roadmap for NEMS sensors"

Poster Session 2

16:00 - 16:45 Poster Presentation

Session 7

16:45 - 17:15 Adrian Ionescu (EPFL) "Guardian Angels for a Smarter

life -- 1 Billion Euros for Zero Power"

17:15 - 18:00 Panel Discussion

18:00 - 18:15 Closing Remarks and Best Poster Awards Presentation


13

The NEMSIC website (www.nemsic.org) is available (M6.4). The site includes two

separate sections: i) a public area intended for dissemination and networking purposes and

ii) a restricted area, intended for consortium internal file storing and sharing, as well as for

support of day-to day activities of the consortium. Only the public, dissemination related

pages are described here. For the internal pages please refer to the first periodic report,

WP6 description.

The NEMSIC website public pages contain an overview of the project objectives and

potential results as well as presentations of the different participating partners, their role

and competences. In the future news, events and publishable results will regularly be

added to the public part of the NEMSIC website and all its pages will be regularly

updated.

After only a few months of existence the NEMSIC website is now ranked No. 1 in a

Google search with the keyword “NEMSIC”, which proves the project visibility and

guarantees easy accessibility for other projects or researchers.

A few pictures of the project website public area are shown below.

Figure 6.1. NEMSIC public website: Home page.

http://www.nemsic.org/


14

Figure 6.2. NEMSIC public website: Partners description: EPFL TUD, IMEC-NL


15

Figure 6.3. NEMSIC public website Partners description: SOU, CEA-LETI, SCIPROM, IMEC,

Honeywell, HiQscreen

The web-site has been regularly updated, till the end of the project, hosting several pieces of

news about the participation of NEMSIC partners in different events and conferences. A

snapshot of the news page taken at end of the project, May 2012, is visible here below in

figure 6.4.


16

Figure 6.4. NEMSIC website: Detail of the news page.

The front-page of project public web-site has a graphic identity which is intended to be closer

to the project directives. A nanowire picture (courtesy of CEA-LETI) has been included to the

homepage and an animation showing the principle of frequency shift of a vibrating nanowire

in presence of a molecule to be measured has also been added. The modifications as required

after the first review meeting have been well received by all other partners. In figure 6.5

below it is shown the NEMSIC web-site homepage.


17

Figure 6.5. NEMSIC website homepage

The public part of the consortium website at http://www.nemsic.org was also updated

regularly with news about the project (conferences, publications, etc.). Figure 2, 3, 4 and 5

present statistics of the access to the NEMSIC website according to different criteria. These

statistics are all real website visits and do not contain automatic traffic from web crawlers

used by search engines. Traffic generated by the webmaster was also excluded.

These statistics have been realised with Google Analytics (GA) which is a free web tool

developed by Google which allows webmasters to keep their website’s visits under control.

Although tools like that already existed, Google Analytics presents more useful and powerful

tools which give much more contextual information about visits (number of visits,

provenance, pages visited...).


18

Figure 6.6. NEMSIC visits statistics

The NEMSIC website has been visited 221 times in the observed month. With an average of

7.3 visits each day, this number is quite average compared to other project websites.

Considering that there are always people or bots who come to the website “automatically”,

without really visiting it, the average of 2.17 pages read for each visit is a good sign, proofing

that visitors do not only visit the arrival page, but others as well. The bounce rate shows the

percentage of visitors leaving the site after visiting the arrival page. Naturally, the lower this

value, the better for the website.

Learning that visitors usually spend about 2 minutes on the website is encouraging: assuming

that those visitors who left the website after visiting only one page (cfr. the bounce rate) did

not spend a lot of time on it, we can argue that real visitors spent about 4-5 minutes on our

website.

Looking at the “News Visits” value, we can state that about half of our visitors come to the

website for the first time. This proves that not only the consortium accesses the website and

the site regularly attracts new visitors.

This table lists the countries visitors come from. All parameters shown before (Average time

on site, bounce rate...) are now listed by nation.


19

Figure 6.7. NEMSIC access from different countries.

As expected, most of the visits come from the partner countries (Switzerland, United

Kingdom, Belgium, France). However, the presence of the United States and India among the

first 7 countries demonstrates that also people outside the consortium are interested in the

research performed in the project.

It is possible to come to a website in three different ways: by directly typing the url in you

browser (meaning that you know quite well the project or the website), by typing a keyword

in your search engine or being redirected from another website (e.g. by clicking on a link).

Referring to NEMSIC, we can say that data are interesting: more than half of our visitors

came from search engines (most of the time using the keyword “NEMSIC”, and sometimes

searching for one of our partners), meaning that they are searching for our website. Assuming

that most of the direct traffic represents visits of the consortium entourage, we can now be

sure that NEMSIC website is often visited by people who indeed look for more information

about the project.


20

Figure 6.8. NEMSIC access method.

This last table shows a comparison between NEMSIC and other projects managed by

SCIPROM. To simplify the comparison we take into account only three variables: visits,

bounce rate, average time on website. Data of the other projects are shown in green when they

are “better” and in red, when NEMSIC results are “better”.

NEMSIC FP7-1 FP7-2 FP7-3 FP7-4 FP7-5 FP7-6

Visits 221 66 144 82 230 565 204

Bounce Rate

57.92% 59.09%

23.61%

37.80%

39.13%

61.42%

52.94%

Average time

2’04’’ 0’49’’ 1’46’’ 3’30’’ 3’07’’ 2’04’’ 2’11

Figure 6.9. NEMSIC access statistics relative to other FP7 projects.


21

Template A (Public)

Further dissemination of the foreseeable scientific results has been organized by workpackage in order to take into account the particularities

of each WP (domains of research, different milestones and dates of deliverables, more or less dependence on the technological steps and

risks).

TEMPLATE A: LIST OF SCIENTIFIC (PEER REVIEWED) PUBLICATIONS, STARTING WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES

No. Title Main Author

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WP1

1 Resonant body transistors Ionescu, A.M.

Device Research

Conference

(DRC), 2010

21-23 June

2010

Conference

Publications USA 2010 181-182

Doi:

10.1109/DR

C.2010.5551

901

2

Nano-Electro-Mechanical

vibrating body FET

resonator for high frequency

integrated oscillators

Grogg, D.

Device Research

Conference

(DRC), 2010

21-23 June

2010

Conference

Publications USA 2010 183-184

10.1109/DR

C.2010.5551

898

3

Self-sustained Low Power

Oscillator Based on

Vibrating Body Field Effect

Transistor

Grogg, D

2009 IEEE

International

Electron Devices

Meeting

Dec 07-09,

2009

IEEE

Conference

Publications

Usa, 2009 741-744

Doi:

10.1109/IED

M.2009.5424

222


22



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on

4

Resonant-body Fin-FETs

with sub-nW power

consumption

Bartsch, S.T.

Electron Devices

Meeting (IEDM),

2010 IEEE

International

6-8 Dec.

2010

IEEE

Conference

Publications

USA 2010 7.6.1-7.6.4

Digital

Object

Identifier:

10.1109/IED

M.2010.5703

318

5

A single active

nanoelectromechanical

tuning fork front-end radio-

frequency receiver

Sebastian T

Bartsch

Nanotechnology

23 225501

18 April

2012

IOP

Publishing Ltd UK & USA 2012 1-7

doi:10.1088/

0957-

4484/23/22/2

25501

6

Hybrid Numerical

Analysis of a high-speed

and non-volatile

suspended gate silicon

nanodot memory

M. A. G.-

Ramirez

J.

Computational

Electronics, 10

(1)

5 May 2011 Springer 2011 248-257

DOI

10.1007/s10

825-011-

0361-z

7

Scaled Silicon

Nanoelectromechanical

Systems (Keynote

Lecture)

H. Mizuta

7th International

Workshop on

Functional and

Nanostructured

Materials

(FNMA2010)

July 2010 Malta July 2010

8

Extremely Sensitive

Conduction-based

Chemical/Biosensors using Suspended Silicon

Nanostructures

M. A. Ghiass

WUN Summer

School and

Showcase on

Nanotechnology

for Healthcare

September

2010 Brockenhurst, 2010


23



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le)

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rov

ided

to t

his

pu

bli

cati

on

9

Design and Analysis of a

Resonant Nano-Electro-

Mechanical Sensor for

Molecular Mass-detection

F. A. Hassani

WUN Summer

School and

Showcase on

Nanotechnology

for Healthcare

September

2010 Brockenhurst, 2010

10

Scaled

Nanoelectromechanical

Hybrid Devices (Invited

Talk)

H. Mizuta

2011 IEEE

International

Conference on IC

Design and

Technology

(ICICDT2011)

May 2011 Conference

Publications Kaohsiung 2011

11

NEMS-MOS and NEMS-

SET hybrid functional

systems for advanced

information processing and

extreme sensing

H. Mizuta

2012 Villa

Conference on

Interaction

Among

Nanostructures

(VCIAN2012),

16 - 20 Apr

2012

Conference

Publications Orlando 2012

12

Double-Gate Suspended

Silicon Nanowire

Transistors with Tunable

Thershold Voltage for

Chemical/Biological

Sensing Applications

M. A. Ghiass IEEE NANO

2012

20-23

August

2012

(Accepted)

Conference

Publications

Birmingham,

UK 2012


24



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serie

s

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le)

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acce

ss p

rov

ided

to t

his

pu

bli

cati

on

13

Temperature insensitive

conductance detection

with surface-

functionalised silicon

nanowire sensors

M. A. Ghiass

Microelectronic

Engineering

88(8)

August

2011

Elsevier

Science Ltd.

Oxford, UK,

UK

UK 2011 1753-1756

Doi:

10.1016/j.me

e.2011.02.06

3

WP2

14

Scaled silicon

nanoelectromechanical

(NEM) hybrid systems

Mizuta, H

ICSICT-2010 -

2010 10th IEEE

International

Conference on

Solid-State and

Integrated Circuit

Technology,

Proceedings

1-4 Nov.

2010

Conference

Publications

Shangai,

China 2010 1198-1201

Doi:

10.1109/ICS

ICT.2010.56

67601

15

Advanced NEMS-based

power management for 3D

Stacked Integrated Circuits

Enachescu, M

2010 International

Conference on

Energy Aware

Computing

16-18 Dec.

2010

Conference

Publications Cairo, Egypt 2010 1-4

Doi:

10.1109/ICE

AC.2010.570

2286

16

Towards “zero-energy”

using NEMFET-based

power management for 3D

hybrid stacked ICs

Voicu, George

Razvan

2011 IEEE/ACM

International

Symposium on

Nanoscale

Architectures

8-9 June

2011

Conference

Publications

San Diego,

USA 2011 203 - 209

Doi:

10.1109/NA

NOARCH.2

011.5941505


25



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le)

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rov

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to t

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pu

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cati

on

17

Is the Road Towards “Zero-

Energy” Paved with

NEMFET-based Power

Management?

M Enachescu

Proceedings of

IEEE

International

Symposium on

Circuits and

Systems (ISCAS)

20-23 May

2012

Conference

Publications Seoul, Korea 2012 1-4

18

Suspended Gate Field Effect

Transistor Based Power

Management - A 32-Bit

Adder Case Study

Enachescu, M

CAS 2009

Proceedings, vol.

2.

12-14 Oct.

2009

Conference

Publications

Sinaia,

Romania 2009 561-564

Doi:

10.1109/SMI

CND.2009.5

336649

19 Can SG-FET Replace FET

In Sleep Mode Circuits? Enachescu, M

4th International

ICST Conference

on Nano-

Networks

October 18-

20, 2009

Conference

Publications

Luzern

(Switzerland) 2009 99-104

Doi:

10.1007/978-

3-642-

04850-0_15

20

Leakage-enhanced 3D-

Stacked NEMFET-based

power management

architecture for autonomous

sensors systems

Enachescu, M.

System Theory,

Control, and

Computing

(ICSTCC), 2011

15th International

Conference on

14-16 Oct.

2011

Conference

Publications Sinaia 2011 1 - 6

Print ISBN:

978-1-4577-

1173-2

WP3

21

Power-efficient readout

circuit for miniaturized

electronic nose

V. Petrescu

Solid-State

Circuits

Conference Digest

of Technical

Papers (ISSCC)

19-23 Feb.

2012

Conference

Publications

San Francisco,

CA 2012 318-320

Doi:

10.1109/ISS

CC.2012.617

7030


26



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22

Towards a low‐power

miniaturized

micromechanical electronic

nose

D. Karabaçak

Proceedings Of

The 14th

International

Symposium On

Olfaction And

Electronic Nose

2–5 May

2011

AIP Conf.

Proc.

New York

City, NY,

(USA)

2011 247-248

doi:http://dx.

doi.org/10.10

63/1.362637

7

WP4

23

Ultra-scaled high-frequency

single-crystal Si NEMS

resonators and their front-

end co-integration with

CMOS for high sensitivity

applications

Ollier, E.

Micro Electro

Mechanical

Systems (MEMS),

2012 IEEE 25th

International

Conference on

Jan. 29

2012-Feb. 2

2012

Conference

Publications Paris 2012 1368 - 1371

Doi:

10.1109/ME

MSYS.2012.

6170421

WP5

24

Temperature insensitive

conductance detection with

surface-functionalised

silicon nanowire sensors

Mohammad

Adel Ghiass Microelectronic

Engineering

Volume 88,

Issue 8,

August 2011

ScienceDirect

/ Elsevier 2011 1753–1756

Doi:

10.1016/j.me

e.2011.02.06

3,

25

Nanomechanical Silicon

Resonators with Intrinsic

Tunable Gain and Sub-nW

Power Consumption

Sebastian T.

Bartsch ACS Nano, 2012,

6 (1) 2012, 6 (1),

American

Chemical

Society

2012 256–264

DOI:

10.1021/nn2

03517w

26

Towards ultra-dense arrays

of VHF NEMS with FDSOI-

CMOS active pixels for

sensing applications

G. Arndt ISSCC 2012

Conference

February

2012

Conference

Publications San Francisco 2012 320 - 322

Doi:

10.1109/ISS

CC.2012.617

7005


27



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on

WP6

Proceedings of 1

st NEMSIC

Workshop

Workshop

participants,

ALL

2011 Japan 2011

Proceedings of the 2

nd

NEMSIC Workshop

Workshop

participants,

ALL

2010 Europe 2010

General review of the

achieved results

Publication in

EC published

jourmal

Europe End of the

project

27 Towards nanoscale resonant

gas sensors Cobianu, C

Annals of the

Academy of

Romanian

Scientists Series

of Science and

Technology of

Information

2011

Academy of

Romanian

Scientists

Romania 2011 39-60

28

A Vision On Resonant

Nano-Electro-Mechanical

Sensors

Cobianu, C Annals of the

Academy of

Romanian

Scientists Series

on Science and

Technology of

Information

Volume 4,

Number

2/2011

Academy of

Romanian

Scientists

Romania 2011 17-38


28



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29

Nano-scale resonant sensors

for gas and biodetection:

expectations and challenges,

Cobianu, C

Proceedings of the

International

Semiconductor

Conference CAS

2009

12-14 Oct.

2009

Conference

Publications

Sinaia,

Romania 2009 259-262

Doi:

10.1109/SMI

CND.2009.5

336553

30

A novel concept for low drift

chemical sensing at micro

and nano-scale Cobianu, C.

Semiconductor

Conference

(CAS), 2010

International

11-13 Oct.

2010

Conference

Publications

Sinaia,

Romania 2009 217 - 220

Doi:

10.1109/SMI

CND.2010.5

650518

31 Emerging All-Differential

Chemical Sensing C. Cobianu

Romanian Acade

my Section

for Information S

cience and

technology

Volume 13,

Number 4,

2010

Romanian Acad

emy Romania 2010 342-349

32

Numerical analysis of

zeptogram/Hz-level mass

responsivity for in-plane

resonant nano-electro-

mechanical sensors

Hassani F.A. Microelectronic

Engineering

vol. 88, issue

9, 2011 Elsevier 2011 2879-2884

Doi:

10.1016/j.me

e.2011.03.00

5,

Novel Concepts for CO2

Detection by Differential

Resonant Nanosensing B Serban


29

template A2: list of dissemination activities

NO. Type of activities3 Main leader

Title Date Place Type of audience4

Size of audience

Countries addressed

1 Workshop D. Tsamados,, A.M. Ionescu, H. Mizuta

Nano-Electro-Mechanical Devices for Integrated Sensing and Switching (ESSDERC/ESSCIRC 2010)

September 17th, 2010

Seville Scientific

Community

(higher

education,

Research),

Industry

30 Europe/international

2 International Symposium Shunri Oda, Hiroshi Iwai and Adrian Ionescu

Advanced Hybrid Nano Devices

October 4-5, 2011 Tokyo Scientific Community (higher education, Research), Industry

30 Eastern Asia/international

3 Course on international summer school

Prof. A.M. Ionescu

Vibrating nanowires for advanced sensing

June 09 Lausanne Scientific

Community

(higher

education,

Research),

30 international

3 A drop down list allows choosing the dissemination activity: publications, conferences, workshops, web, press releases, flyers, articles published in the popular press, videos, media

briefings, presentations, exhibitions, thesis, interviews, films, TV clips, posters, Other.

4 A drop down list allows choosing the type of public: Scientific Community (higher education, Research), Industry, Civil Society, Policy makers, Medias ('multiple

choices' is possible.


30

Section B (confidential) - Use of foreground

TEMPLATE B1: LIST OF APPLICATIONS FOR PATENTS, TRADEMARKS, REGISTERED DESIGNS, ETC.

Type of IP

Rights: Patents,

Trademarks,

Registered

designs, Utility

models, etc.

Application

reference(s) (e.g.

EP123456)

Subject or title of application Applicant (s) (as on the application)

Patent US 2011/0113856 A1,

May 19, 2011

All –differential resonant nanosensor

apparatus and method

Cobianu Cornel, Bogdan Serban

Patent US 2011/0143447/

A1, Jun. 16, 2011

Differential resonator for NO2 detection and

method related thereto

Bogdan-Catalin Serban, Cornel P. Cobianu,

Mihai N. Mihaila, Viorel Georgel Dumitru,

Octavian Buiu,

Patent US 2011/0143448 A1,

Jun.16, 2011

SO2 detection using differential nano-

resonators and methods related thereto

Bogdan- Catalin Serban, Cornel P. Cobianu,

Mihai. N. Mihaila, Viorel Georgel Dumitru,

Patent European patent

Application, EP2.325

630 A2, 25.05.2011

All- differential resonant nanosensor

apparatus and method

Cobianu Cornel, Serban Bogdan

Patent European Patent

Application’’ EP

2.333.532 A1,

15.06.2011

Carbon dioxide sensor with functionalized

resonating beams

Serban Bogdan-Catalin, Cobianu Cornel. P,

Mihaila Mihai, Dumitru Viorel Georgel


Application EP

2.336.755 A1, 22.06.

2011

’SO2 detection using differential nano-

resonators and methods related thereto

Serban Bogdan Catalin, Cobianu Cornel P.,

Mihaila Mihai. N, Dumitru Viorel Georgel,


Application EP 2.327

983 A2, 01 06. 2011

Functionalized monolayers for carbon dioxide

detection by a resonant nanosensor


Mihaila Mihai. N, Dumitru Viorel Georgel


31

Patent European patent

Application

EP2.333.531 A1,

15.06.2011

Differential resonators for NO2 detection and

methods related thereto


Mihaila Mihai. N, Dumitru Viorel Georgel,

Buiu Octavian

Patent US 2011/0116974 A1,

Pub. Date : May 19,

Functionalized monolayers for carbon dioxide

detection by a resonant nanosensor

Bogdan- Catalin Serban, Cornel Cobianu, Mihai

N Mihaila, Viorel-Georgel Dumitru

Patent US 2011/0138878 A1,

Jun.16 2011

Carbon dioxide sensors with functionalized

resonating beams

Bogdan- Catalin Serban, Cornel Cobianu, Mihai

N Mihaila, Viorel-Georgel Dumitru

Patent U.S Patent

Application

Publication, Pub.No :

US2011/0239759 A1,

Oct.6 2011-10-26

Differential resonant sensor apparatus and

method for detecting relative humidity

Cornel Cobianu, Bogdan Serban, Mihai N.

Mihaila


32

Template B2 (Confidential)

TEMPLATE B2: OVERVIEW TABLE WITH EXPLOITABLE FOREGROUND

Exploitable

Foreground

(description)

Exploitable product(s) or

measure(s)

Sector(s) of

application

Timetable, commercial use Patents or

other IPR

exploitation

(licenses)

Owner &

Other

Beneficiary(s)

involved

NEMSIC-based

Integrated gas

sensors

Gas sensors for CO2, NO2

and SO2 detection in the

limit of Threshold Limit

Value (TLV), which is in

the ppm range for toxic

gases like NO2 and SO2

-Environmental

protection

-Indoor Air Quality

(IAQ)

Next generation gas sensors :

Time table : 3+ horizon

-CO2 based Demand Controlled

Ventilation for Indoor Air Quality

-CO2 Sensors for CCS monitoring

-NO2 and SO2 gas sensors for

environment monitoring

Patents-

envisaged

Honeywell -as

per

Consortium

Agreement

regulations

Functionalized

sensing layers for

CO2, NO2 and SO2

detection by

NEMSIC related

resonant principles

Different types of resonant

sensor for CO2, NO2 and

SO2 detection

Environmental

protection

Next generation low power, low size gas

sensors

Timetable : 2+horizon

Patents

envisaged

Honeywell-as

per consortium

agreement

regulations

Functionalized

sensing layers

formaldehyde,

benzene and the

tetrachloroethylene

detection by

Different types of resonant

sensors for formaldehyde,

benzene and the

tetrachloroethylene

molecules detection.

Environmental and

health protection

Timetable : 5+ horizon

CEA-LETI


33

NEMSIC related

resonant principles

Exploitable Foreground

Road mapping

A NEMSIC roadmap is described in D6.7.2. The project partners investigate potential

applications both for sensing and for low power ICs. This market analysis includes desk

research, profiling of applications and in depth discussions, and interviews with users along

the supply chain.

For nano-sensors NEMSIC plans to interview experts, institutes and companies from:

• Automotive combustion processes,

• Breath analysis in sports and medical,

• Cancer diagnostics,

• Industrial and environmental monitoring,

• Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning (HVAC) in automotive and building.

For low power ICs NEMSIC will interview experts from:

• IC design and manufacturing,

• IC system designers in telecom, medical, and other low power applications.

The industrial experts to be interviewed are typically those who are very innovative or

represent a large market position. These interviews provide the necessary insides to the

market requirements. Further, it allows us to present the NEMS IC solutions to key players

and create links for future exploitation. A subcontracted company chosen for the roadmapping

activity will perform this analysis with the help of the project partners. It will report regularly

on the results of the interviews. All partners will discuss and validate these findings. All

interviewed experts (30) will be invited to a final workshop, presenting the results of NEMS

IC. It is our aim to develop these links further and create projects.

Finally, the charm of the NEMS IC project is to smartly exploit the existing know-how in

present MEMS techniques and, finally, push it at nano-scale and combine it with advanced

CMOS. The two applications chosen, sensors and low power IC, can be potentially extended

later on to RF and even data storage. It is clear that the commercial success of these new ideas

will require time, for some of them most probably beyond the project duration, but, in

exchange, there will be certain offered innovation for both the MEMS and the IC industries

and opportunities for joint businesses.

Honeywell

Honeywell is interested in using the resonant NEMSIC-based gas sensors with expected

performances like low cost/size/power consumption and high sensitivity and selectivity for

the detection of CO2, NO2 and SO2 in gas sensing applications.

NEMSIC: Grant Agreement n. 224525 Deliverable D6.3, Version: 1.0

35

Honeywell is interested in the technology of Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAM) to be used

as functionalized sensing layers for CO2, NO2 and SO2 gas detection by NEMSIC resonant

sensing principles. We are aware of the challenges in the field of performance drift of the gas

sensors and will contribute to the NEMSIC project with our vision on the long term stability

of integrated gas sensors.

Honeywell is interested in the low cost wafer level packaging technologies for gas sensing

integrated nanosystems. The efforts of Honeywell in the field of nanosystem packaging can

help advancing the gas sensing concept closer to the prototyping stage. Honeywell is

interested in using the NEMSIC based gas sensors for wireless sensors networks (WSN) to be

“dust-like” distributed on large surface ground areas above the under-ground reservoirs for

CO2 Capturing and Sequestration (CCS).Honeywell is interested in using the NEMSIC based

gas sensors for WSN monitoring the environment against any contamination with SO2, NO2

resulted from clean coal technologies.

Low cost/power/size/response time and high sensitivity/selectivity integrated gas sensor can

replace the present commercial gas sensors on the market and open the way to new

applications in the area of WSN as described above, with a huge market in the traditional and

future applications for environmental control and green energy generation from coal.

Honeywell intends to develop the intellectual property within the NEMSIC project by

generating US and WO patents, in the field of expertise. Honeywell will contribute to finding

suitable solutions for the project evolution toward feasible applications.

NEMS realization has already started to emerge, and this happened by different technology

approaches, like “top-down”, “bottom-up”, or what we called mixed “top-down-bottom-up”.

Here, it is useful to mention how the three approaches differentiate one from the other, when

the resonant NEMS is the final target, for all of them. For the “top-down” approach, the

entire resonant NEMS technology is performed by using the deposition processes followed by

lithographic processes and corresponding selective etchings of the material or sacrificial

layers till the suspended nanobeams are obtained, by the so-called subtractive processing.

Such nanobeams will be able to vibrate at their mechanical resonance frequency when the

suitable actuation scheme is used. The “bottom-up” approach for the realization of NEMS

resonant sensors means that only additive processing is used for obtaining the final

nanosystem, made of molecular building blocks which will be interconnected one to the

others, till the functional resonant NEMS is structure is obtained without any subtractive

process. Today, this genuine “bottom–up” approach is emerging for nanomotors, but we do

not have any experimental demonstrator of a pure “bottom-up” macromolecular architecture

for a resonant NEMS. Finally, the mixed “top-down-bottom-up” approach for processing the

resonant NEMS sensors means that both subtractive and additive steps are used at the

technology level. Now, we shall enter the main principles of the three approaches.

Top-Down Resonant NEMS Sensing Systems

This approach takes the technology benefits from the well-established MEMS technology

pushing their size limits below 100 nm for reaching the high resonance frequencies and

associated high sensitivities of the resonant NEMS systems. Taking into consideration, the

state of the art in the “top-down” NEMS resonator technology, and their potential

applications, below, we try to envision a possible roadmap of the top-down technology and its

products, as shown in Table 1.


36

Table 1. A possible roadmap for the top-down technology of the resonant NEMS systems,

acting on a timeline of about 10-15 years.

Society

needs

Low cost/size/power, high sensitivity/selectivity gas sensors for air

monitoring. High sensitivity biodetection for rapid response at low sampling

volume. Real-time-detection-analysis-computing-wireless communication

and feed-back

Potential

Future

Products

Wireless NEMS based gas and bio sensing array operating at room

temperature and atmospheric pressure Hybrid miniaturized mass

spectrometer with novel analyte transportation principle. Novel mechanical

sensors (acceleration, gyro, pressure) based on resonant NEMS. Resonant

NEMS based nanomechanics computing and RF front-end electronics

Components On chip actuator and detector of the resonant frequency Self-sustaining

oscillators Microfluidic processor chip for mass spectrometer

Technologies SOI-CMOSFET for both NEMS resonator and electronics

Electron beam lithography. Dip Pen Nanolithography

Enablers Governmental support for high risk research

Science and Technology of MEMS-NEMS resonator

Low cost applications required by the market

The huge mass sensing capabilities of these resonant NEMS sensors have started to be shown.

Thus, a resonant NEMS having a clamped-clamped SiC suspended nanobeam, with a

resonance frequency of 133 MHz has shown a mass resolution of 7 zeptograms (1zg=10-21

grams), when the resonator was exposed in ultrahigh vacuum and cryogenic temperatures of

37K. Such mass detection resolutions, under ultrahigh vacuum and cryogenic temperatures

have been used for proof of principle of a resonant NEMS-based mass spectrometer, which,

nowadays is able to detect molecules with minimum mass of 100 Da (1 Da=1 AMU). Here,

the detection principle is based on the mass loading increase due to adsorbed molecule on the

surface of the vibrating nanobeam. The NEMS resonator is located in ultra high vacuum (10-8

torr) and cryogenic temperatures (40K) at the end of about 2 meter-long channel where the

electrospray ionization, ion optics and the two vacuum stages are located. The mass loading

principle is also used for the gas sensing, where a functionalized nano beam is used for

selective adsorption of the gas species of interest, while the mass loading created by these

adsorbed molecule will give a shift in the resonance frequency, which is proportional with the

amount of gas from the ambient to be monitored. Actually, this gas sensing application is a

major challenge for entire scientific community, as in this case, the resonant device needs to

vibrate at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, conditions for which the quality factor

of the resonant beam is decreasing due to viscous damping of the beam vibration in the air. In

addition, the frequency shift can be much decreased due to an additional mass of the resonator

coming from the viscous air which is moving due to nanobeam vibration, not to mention the

increase in the background noise due to increased surface adsorbate fluctuations at

atmospheric pressure. An important step forward on this direction of gas sensing at

atmospheric pressure and room temperature was done by the work of Li et al, who have

shown for the first time that a mass resolution of about 25 zg was reached at room

temperature and atmospheric pressure operation. In addition, in that paper, the authors have


37

proven that on-chip piezoresistive detection can replace the magnetic detection principle,

while the magnetic actuation was replaced by piezoceramic actuator transferring its vibration

to the NEMS resonator. Also, a quality factor of more than 400 at atmospheric pressure was

obtained for an operation frequency of 127 MHz, for the suspended SiC nanocantilever with a

small size (0.6x0.4x0.07) μm. The SiC nanocantilever was functionalized with a thin layer of

polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) for the detection of 1,1 difluoroethane (DFE) gas. The

reversible mass loading of the nanocantilever in the presence of the DFE pulses has proved

both the reversible adsorption of the DFE, as well as the high accuracies of mass detection in

the range of 1 attogram, at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Unfortunately, for the

moment, there is no gas calibrated detection, so that to be able to make a correlation between

the gas concentration in the ambient, the adsorbed gas on the small surface of the cantilever

sensing surface, and the corresponding resonance frequency shift measured.

Starting from the above state of the art results in the field of resonant NEMS sensor

technology, and transducer principles, where the most important mass detection results were

obtained from SiC nanobeam epitaxially grown on silicon substrates, it is important to see

what are the major trends in the future developments of the top-down NEMS resonators and

their applications. From the point of view of the technology for NEMS sensor realization, the

most important direction is the use of the integrated SOI-CMOSFET technology for the

realization of both resonator and excitation/detection circuitry on the same chip. Such an

integration of sensing and electronics will open the way to major breakthrough in the use of

resonant NEMS for gas and biosensing applications. This SOI-CMOSFET “top-down”

technology approach is in progress, today. It appears that the electrostatic actuation combined

with piezoresistive detection is a possible integrated resonant nanodevice solution. As an

alternative, the use of NEMS resonators in the feed-back loop of the on-chip oscillators may

be a major breakthrough in the field of NEMS resonators, as this approach, which is

“imported” from the classical SAW-based electronic oscillators has the advantage of

eliminating both the existing actuation circuitry as well as reading technologies. The

resonance frequency of the vibrating nanobeam will determine the oscillation frequency of the

NEMS-based oscillator, and its variation with external analytes will provided the sensing

function. If the selective functionalization of each sensing nanobeam can be done, and its

reading is performed as described above, then the next step would be the realization of the

resonant NEMS-based gas sensing array. We anticipate that electron beam writing combined

with maskless dip pen nanolithography will be required for selective functionalization of the

nanobeams or cantilevers, depending on the chemistry used for functionalization. From this

point of view, it may be possible that the “top-down” approach to be slightly moved in the

direction of “bottom-up” technologies, where additive processing is done, as described above.

Additional on-chip electronics will generate the wireless capabilities for such integrated

systems, which will make them suitable for the future portable applications. There are good

expectations for the use of the same SOI technology for the next generations of low

dimensions mass spectrometers, where the present electrospray ionization (ESI) system and

ion optical guidance (which require a channel of about 2 m in length) to be replaced by

microfluidic processor chip, and thus, ultimately, miniaturized, maybe even portable mass

spectrometers would be done one day.

Bottom-Up Resonant NEMS Sensing Systems

The “bottom-up” approach is the realization of the molecular architectures and

devices/systems by means of additive atom-by-atom construction, based on supramolecular

chemistry foundation and molecular self-assembly and molecular recognition specific


38

processes. As a summary, below, in Table 2, we present a possible roadmap of the bottom–up

molecular electronics electronics and machines.

Table 2. A possible roadmap of molecular electronics and machines, acting on a time scale

of 15-25 years

Society’s

needs

Ultimate, molecular-level miniaturized nanosystems and nanorobots for

portable applications and health enhancement, and tools (productive

nanosystems) for their large scale production

Potential

Future

Products

Productive nanosystem for large scale fabrication of nanorobot

Molecular systems for nanorobot application

Molecular systems for computing and sensing applications

Components Molecular NEMS building blocks, sensors and actuators

Molecular Memories and Computing and Outside Interfaces

Single electron molecular transistor and gear

Molecular Junction and Rectifier

Molecular Switches

Resistive molecular wires

Technologies Molecular biotechnology

Molecular recognition

Molecular self-assembly and recognition, nanomanipulation techniques

IC based interfacing technology

Enablers Quantum Physics and Chemistry

Supramolecular Chemistry

Material science

Top down NEMS technology

Classical top-down nanoelectronics,

Molecular electronics

Within the molecular self-assembly, the molecules are arranging themselves, without external

support, in a certain conformation, by means of non-covalent chemical bonds (like hydrogen

bonds, van der Waals forces, etc.). Molecular recognition, which is at the heart of many

chemical bio-sensing processes and future molecular sensors means the non-covalent bonding

between a host and a guest molecule, based on molecular complementarity. The molecular

recognition can be static, which means that the guest molecule will fit perfectly in the “open”

structure of the host, like the key and the keyhole, and thus it will be recognized. In a more

complex case of the dynamic molecular recognition, the host could be thought as having two

“holes” in his open structure, and filling one of the holes by the first guest molecules will

affect in a certain way the reaction rate of filling the second hole in the host by the second

guest molecule fitting in the remaining hole of the host molecule. These fundamental notions

of the “bottom-up” approach are at the origin of the molecular electronics, containing single-

molecule based devices and more complex molecular architectures, as well as the molecular

machines and ultimately the molecular nanotechnology, the last being a yet speculative field

envisioning the technology of doing future “nano-products” by means of productive

nanosystems like molecular assembler, as initially described by Drexler. This concept of

productive nanosystem was also promoted by Mihail C. Roco, in the “US National


39

Nanotechnology Initiative” as later stage of nanotechnology penetration in the application

domain, where such systems of nanosystems will be used in the factories of the future for the

production of the atomically precise parts of commercial nanosystems.

There is a legitimate question: Why molecular electronics and machines? The answer would

be, yes, we need to go to that direction, because the molecule is the place where the electronic

processes take place, if we think about signal transduction or photosynthesis processes.

Beyond this fundamental motivation, there are practical advantages of molecular electronics

in terms of small size of molecules (1nm up to 100 nm), excellent support from molecular

processing of self-assembly and molecular recognition for “bottom-up” chemical design and

fabrication, to which, other well-developed knowledge like dynamical stereochemistry and

synthetic tailorability are added for the molecular design of the electrical, optical, and

mechanical properties. The molecular electronics has been able to prove the principle

operation of the molecular devices like switches, rectifiers, computational circuits and even

the memory circuits. At the level of proof of principle for molecular electronic circuits, a

memory of 256 bits of RAM performed in a cross bar architecture has been already proven, as

shown in the reference. As an example one can use a molecular switch, which is obtained

from the mechanically interlocked molecular architecture (MIMA) called rotaxane. The

rotaxane is a dumbbell like organic molecule containing a ring-like macrocycle sliding on the

axle of the dumbbell, which is limiting the macrocycle movement at both ends by stoppers of

a larger diameter. The rotaxane based switch is operating like this: when the sliding

macrocycle is at one end, the rotaxane is in an electrically conducting state, while when the

macrocycle is at the other end, the rotaxane is in an electrically not-conductive state. Solid

state rotaxane-based memories in thin films of Langmuir-Blodgett have been already

reported, where the switching of the macrocycle between two different conductive states is

the core of operating principle. The writing of the nano-recording dot was done by applying

locally a positive voltage with the tip of the scanning tunneling microscope.

The family of the MIMA architectures is larger, and is containing other organic components

of the future molecular machines like knotane, acting as a mechanical junction between two

machine components, as well as catenane, acting as a chain made of interconnected rings.

Such MIMA building blocks represent the starting point of the future complex nanomachines.

An initial approach of the rotaxane based molecular motors has been already published, where

the macrocycle of the rotaxane architecture can rotate around the axle. The rotaxane machines

are actuated by chemical or photochemical input signals, and thus muscle functions have been

also reported.

Recent efforts in molecular NEMS are considering biomimetics technologies, where the

forces developed by biological and artificial molecular machines are controlled at this

molecular level, in solid environments, for getting macroscopic effect, like in the case of

skeletal muscles.

It is just a matter of time before the molecular electronics will make a ‘junction” with the

molecular machines for defining the future integrated “molecular intelligence”, where both

sensing and actuation and signal processing to be done at molecular level, in the integrated

molecular nano-machine. In order to reach such level, important milestones of further

understanding the fundamental aspects of electric conduction, sensing and actuation in such

molecular structures and their interfacing with the outside world followed by reliable and

reproducible fabrication of such molecular building blocks of molecular electronics and their

interconnection need to be passed.


40

Mixed “Top-Down-Bottom-Up” Resonant NEMS Sensors

As described by its name, this approach consists of a mix and match of “top-down”

subtractive resonant NEMS technologies and “bottom-up” additive processes like silicon

nanowires growth and carbon based technologies (carbon nanotube (CNT) or graphene (G)).

Based on the technology and device advances, one can imagine a possible roadmap for this

mixed “top-down-bottom-up” resonant NEMS sensors, as shown in Table 3, from below.

Table 3. A possible roadmap for mixed “top-down bottom-up” resonant NEMS sensors, acting

on a time scale of 10-20 years.

Society’s

needs

-Low cost/size/power-High sensitivity/selectivity gas sensors for air

monitoring

-High sensitivity biodetection for rapid response (<10 min) at nL sampling

volume

- Real-time detection-analysis-computing-wireless communication and feed-

back

Potential

Future

Products

Portable nanorobots with NEMS for sensing and RF Front End

Wireless, on-chip NEMS resonant chemical sensor array, accelerometers, gyro

NEMS resonant chemical sensors operating at 300K and 1 atm

Mass Spectrometers for simultaneously mass and position detection

NEMS resonators for on-chip clock, mechanical filtering in Front End RF,

GHz (cell phone)

Components Actuation and detection building blocks for resonant NEMS sensing systems

Functionalized graphene nanobeams and or cantilever used as chemical

sensors

NEMS resonators based on suspended Graphene-gate SWCNT MOSFET as

readout

SWCNT FET transistor, Graphene Schottky diode and Graphene MOSFET

transistor

Pristine SiNW piezoresistor, Metallized SiNW, Graphene ultracapacitor

Technologies Nanoscale functionalization processes (SAM) and tools (DPN) for chemical

sensors

SWCNT and Graphene manipulation tools (SEM, nanopiezoelectric probes,

STM)

CVD for Fe-catalyzed SWCNT selective deposition and Graphene Transfer

Technologies of CNT and graphene to the final chip

SOI-CMOSFET based on Electron Beam Lithography, SLV epitaxy, graphene

epitaxy

Enablers Governmental support

Carbon Allotrope Chemistry

Material science, Quantum Physics and Chemistry

Present and future bottom-up silicon, silicon carbide and carbon technology

Classical top-down nanoelectronics and NEMS technologies

The silicon nanowires (SiNW) to be used as suspended vibrating elements in the resonant

NEMS were grown atom-by-atom by the so-called vapor-liquid-solid epitaxy, ending-up with

a SiNW bridge, as the heart of the resonator.


41

The carbon technologies (CNT or G) for nanodevices fabrication has been developed on two

directions: on-chip selective growth or separate growth followed by nanomanipulation of the

CNT or G “foil” to the specific place on the chip surface.

Today, there are already well established technologies for growing on-chip self-assembled

carbon structures to be used for the realization of active devices and sensors. This is the case

of vertical CNT’s obtained selectively and directly on specific areas of the silicon substrates,

where metallic catalysts are previously deposited, or the case of epitaxial graphene obtained

directly on SiC substrate by the sublimation of the silicon atoms from the surface of the SiC

material. The nano-manipulation of the CNT’s or G-foils to the required position on the chip

surface is a labor-intensive process requiring very advanced 3 axis piezoelectric

nanomanipulators tools for transferring the carbon material (CNT or graphene foil) to the

right place on the chip.

Adding the SiNW and carbon technologies to the existing “top-down” resonant NEMS,

previously described has opened the way to improved technologies, which did not further

require the need for SiC suspended nanobeams to be used for the fabrication of high

frequency resonators, and such results will be briefly mentioned here.

For example, in the reference , self-transducing resonant SiNW-NEMS operating at room

temperature and moderate vacuum (1 mtorr) were obtained. In ref. , it is for the first time,

when an on-chip electrostatic actuation and piezoresistive detection (R=100 kΩ) for an

excitation frequency of 40 MHz is reported. In addition, a quality factor of 800 (1200 at high

stress in SiNW, but non-linear response!) is obtained at 300K and 1 mtorr vacuum. Such a

resonant NEMS would generate a mass detection of 500 yg (10-24) (0.6 Da) for 30 nm SiNW,

at an operation frequency of 75 MHz ! Reference is the first paper proving the possibility to

have on-chip actuation and detection for the resonant NEMS, and this was possible for the

case of SiNW resonant nanobeam.

The “carbon” based technologies and their possible integration with IC technology have been

of huge interest in the last decades. Since 1991, when the CNT’s applications were triggered

by the work of Sumio Iijima from NEC, there has been a major interest in controlling CNT’s

fabrication technology and their integration in IC technology as well as in NEMS-based

sensing technology, making the CNT’s a major player for both “Beyond CMOS” technology

and “More than Moore” technologies. CNT is a material of high surface to volume ratio, with

hollow structure and excellent mechanical optical and thermal properties, and a strong

candidate for gas sensing. CNT is used either as “it is” (pristine) or functionalized, or as a

component of matrix nanocomposite. CNT based chemical sensors are using different

principles, like change in the electrical resistance or in the local density of states as a function

of gas to be detected. CNT has been functionalized for detection of different gases, like CO,

CO2, H2S, SO2, NO2, NH3, humidity, methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol, 1-buthanol,

tertiary- buthanol 1-penthanol, 1-octanol. Challenges with CNT based sensing remains in

terms of still being a costly material and the variation of physical and chemical properties as a

function of preparation process, Related to CNT-based NEMS system, it is worth to mention

here the use of the CNT’s in advanced applications like CNT-based switches, memories and

nanomotors. Resonant NEMS based on CNT and their excitation and detection by coupling

them in the feedback loop of an oscillator has been already reported . CNT applications are

doing rapid steps towards industrial applications, these days.


42

The same interest, if not higher has been created by the discovery of the graphene and its

applications, by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov . Graphene is one atom-thick sheet of

carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb lattice. Therefore, graphene is the 2D unit cell of

graphite, where many such graphene “foils” are stacked one over the other. Graphene has

unparalleled strength, stiffness and low mass per unit area. It is a zero-gap material with high

mobility limited by defect scattering. The holes and electron mobility is equal and, for free

standing graphene, it can have a value of about 40000 cm2/Vs, while the electrical resistivity

of graphene can be about 10-6

Ω cm. Its compatibility with 2D IC technology and

lithographically patterning capability, as well as good signal-to-noise ratio in integrated

readout make the graphene an excellent candidate for mixed “top-down-bottom-up” NEMS

resonator technology. The graphene can be prepared either by mechanical exfoliation method

(which remains the best method, for the moment) or by chemical vapor deposition method

from heterogeneous surface reaction between CH4 and H2 on the copper substrate, which is

subsequently etched away, while the graphene layer is embedded in PMMA for its further

transfer on the functional substrate. Such a method was used with the graphene fixed on the

perimeter of a perforated Si3N4 membrane, and the quality factor for such a vibrating

membrane, under tensile stress was very high. Actually, the highest ever product between the

surface/volume ratio and the quality factor (RxQ) was obtained : R*Q=14000 nm-1

, while a

quality factor of 2400 at 300K and 6 mtorr, for a graphene membrane diameter of 22.5 μm

was obtained, in the case of photothermal actuation and interferometric detection. This result

shows that the graphene is an ideal material for future NEMS resonators.

An important step forward in the integration of the carbon technology with silicon

technology has been recently published, where graphene is used as a suspended gate of a FET

transistor, while the field effect is generated in a single wall CNT (SWCNT) located on the

surface of the SiO2/Si substrate. This is the first electron device combining the CNT and the

graphene technology for the realization of a suspended gate graphene and CNT-based FET

device. The CVD-SWCNT is manipulated by SEM to the right position above SiO2/Si. The

electron beam lithography is used for contacting the Pd/Ti metalization to the SWCNT

semiconductor tube. Graphene is mechanically exfoliated from graphite and suspended above

SWCNT. The electrical characterization of the device was performed in vacuum at 100K. The

CNT-FET has an on/off ratio equal to 104 and a minimum resistance of 90kΩ. The 2.1 μm

wide graphene gate has maximum resistance (4.7 kΩ) at Dirac point, while the subthreshold

slope of CNT FET transistor at 100K is 20 mV, i.e. higher than the ideal value at this

temperature, thanks to the technology which is used. In the same time, the graphene

suspended gate FET can be considered as a NEMS resonator, which could work with

electrostatic actuated graphene, as a movable gate for double gate CNT-FET. A major

advantage of this NEMS resonator could be its electronic-tunable resonance frequency by

driving a varying strain in the graphene gate. In addition, non-linear multimode graphene

vibrations would allow mass and position sensing, while the FET used a readout circuit with

its built-in amplification will simplify the resonance frequency detection, in a sensing

application. Therefore, these devices are promising candidate for future mixed “top-down-

bottom-up” NEMS sensors.

IMEC-NL & IMEC

IMEC-NL participates in the NEMSIC funded project because this project fits within a R&D

life cycle approach, running from PhD research over governmental funded projects, industry

sponsored (program or bilaterally organized) toward technology transfer, spin-off or IP


43

licensing. As such the results of NEMSIC will form the background for interactions with

industry (locally, European wide and even world-wide) in the field of gas sensing.

The NEMSIC project fits also in the R&D life-cycle approach for IMEC-BE. The IMEC-BE

results of the project will form background for collaborations with the industry, academic

institutions and research institutes in the field of biosensing.

CEA-LETI

CEA-LETI is involved in this project as this institution is aimed at evaluating new concepts

and transferring newly developed technology to industry through technology transfer, spin-off

or IP licensing.

In this project, gas sensors based on NEMS devices have been evaluated as candidates with

strong potential. There will enable to detect with extremely high sensitivities some toxic gases

that could be helpful in both major fields: environment and health.

Our role at CEA-LETI can be to push forward the technology to provide a full integration of

the device including packaging at the wafer scale compatible with the application and to

evaluate the cost of the technology together with the efficiency of new devices. This should

bring a good vision for practical industry exploitation.

In addition, this project could lead to new collaborations with academic/research

organisations and industrial partners at the local or international level.

grant agreement number - european commission :...

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