The entities involved in the European PHEMTRONICS project have recently held an online kick-off meeting of this programme, within the European Commission's H2020 FET-OPEN call, which addresses the challenges of starting a new era in the fields of mobile communications, as well as supporting research and innovation projects on new future technologies.
During the project kick-off meeting, the partners discussed their objectives and the expectations of the different stakeholders on the outcome of the project, and prepared a detailed framework of activities including not only pure research but also training courses, dissemination of the results and evaluation of the activities.
In particular, Fernando Moreno, from FOTOGLASS and responsible for the project at the UC, introduced the members of the Optics group who will participate and outlined the basic elements of their contribution, "consisting fundamentally in the design of the different optical elements that we want to address based on the materials proposed in this research, especially Gallium and its combinations with others that present phase changes in the visible and infrared range, such as chalcogenide compounds with elements of the oxygen column of the periodic table, such as selenium and tellurium".
Maria Losurdo, Research Director at the Institute of Nanotechnology - CNR, Bari (Italy) and project coordinator, explained the expected impact of PHEMTRONICS: 'We are shaping the transition from nanoscale technology to the future of femtoscale optical communication and computing; the challenge is to provide a pervasive cognitive environment to continuously reinvent ourselves through the applications of exciting future technologies that merge all the knowledge we have acquired in optics, photonics, plasmonics and new materials.
This project addresses optical computing, ultrafast athermal switching for neuromorphic computing, tunable nanopixel displays, trying to cover the whole chain, from a new class of phase-shifting plasmonic materials, to fabrication, design, modelling tools and integration into new optical device architectures.
Within this context, the overall goal is to offer innovative ultrafast light-induced phase-shift 'switches', dynamically reconfigurable antennas and adaptive switchable multiband detectors that overcome current speed, power and frequency paradigms.
