A University of Surrey spin-out is to supply its new nanomaterials processing system to École Polytechnique de Montréal.
Surrey NanoSystems developed the multi-chamber tool, the NanoGrowth Catalyst, to create vacuum processing conditions for highly pure materials, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene and silicon nanowires.
The equipment developed by the spin-out can be used in the R&D of new materials for optoelectronic, thin-film and hybrid electronics.
The Canadian university will use the system to support a wide range of research, spanning microelectronics, optoelectronics, and thin-films across several departments.
Processing
Working with Surrey NanoSystems, Patrick Desjardins - director of the school's engineering physics department - was able to customise the tool so that it can use several different processing and deposition methods including CVD, sputtering and thermal annealing.
The Université de Montréal will also use the new tool. The university's chemistry department will use the equipment as part of R&D into electronics, optoelectronics, sensing technologies and energy conversion, as well as fundamental research into what occurs at the interface of electro-active nanomaterials.
Pierre Levesque of the University of Montreal's chemistry department says the system can support wide-ranging research and is easy to use, supported by software-controlled processing.
Solar
Another NanoGrowth Catalyst system is being built for the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute, a close collaborator of Surrey NanoSystems.
As well as supporting silicon and other inorganic semiconductor materials R&D, Surrey NanoSystems' equipment is being used in the development of hybrid solar cells at Germany's Ludwig-Maximilians University.
Researchers are using an advanced plasma vapour deposition tool to develop production techniques that use precisely ordered nanowire structures as templates for organic material.
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