Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) - strips of graphene few tens of nanometers wide - are good candidates for next-generation graphene based electronics. At the Istituto Nanoscienze of CNR (CnrNano) a research focus is dedicated to the study of structural, electronic, optical and vibrational properties of graphene nanoribbons with theoretical approaches that are developed in collaboration with leading experimental research groups. One of the recent results achieved in the field, is the first ...

Quantum electronics is now a mature field of physics in the sense that its basis is well understood, and in that it is a natural playground to develop quantum technology. Despite this tremendous success in both the understanding and harnessing of charge transport, very little is known regarding the quantum properties of heat transport. The COHERENT CALORITRONICS group at CnrNano activity aims at strengthening the understanding of phase-coherent heat transport in mesoscopic superconducting ...

Cnr-Nano researchers developed a device that allow heat to flow preferentially in one direction, providing the homologue of an electrical diode. In a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers show the performances achieved in a hybrid device combining normal metals tunnel-coupled to superconductors, providing the realization of a thermal diode for electronic heat current that could be successfully implemented in true low-temperature solid-state thermal circuits. The results are ...

Conventional techniques of Terahertz spectroscopy (which use the range of electromagnetic radiation between infrared and microwave) reach a spatial resolution that, depending on the radiation used, cannot go beyond an intrinsic limit, the so-called diffraction limit, which is between 3 and 3000 microns. This limitation thus only allows the investigation of ensembles, in which the relevant physical parameters are estimated as the mean value of the size, orientation, shape, and density of ...

The perfect coherent absorption, observed for the first time 3 years ago in a silicon slab, has attracted a great interest in the scientific community because from a theoretical point of view it is the reverse of the laser: in fact it gives rise to a device that absorbs the light completely, contrary to the laser which generates it. In general the absorption of light by a material depends on its dielectric properties and increases in proportion to its thickness. However, when not one beam but ...

Spin control of single electrons is of great interest for future applications in electronics and spintronics. However, to observe these phenomena at room temperature it is necessary to confine the electrons to conductive islands with reduced size, almost atomic. Although this type of confinement is feasible today, the technological difficulty is to control independently the different conductive islands separated by a few nanometers. A goal almost prohibitive. Recently a group of researchers from ...

The focus of the Istitute of Nanoscence is on graphene with the ambitious of developing research activities that have the potential to bring this material and related nanostructures from a state of raw potential to a point where they can revolutionize multiple industries - from flexible, transparent electronics, to energy and high performance computing and spintronics. Our current efforts are on the growth of epitaxial graphene and its chemical functionalization for energy applications. Other ...

Nanobrain is part of the flagship project NanoMax and originates from the collaboration between four CNR Institutes: Nanoscienze (Nano), Neuroscienze (IN), Officina dei Materiali (IOM) and Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO). This project promotes the collaboration between the neuroscience and the nanofabrication technologies present in CNR. At the basis of this project is the consideration that the brain is biochemically isolated from the body by the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB): because of this ...