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Key projects:

Avances en Recubrimientos Tecnológicos para aplicaciones DECOrativas (ARTDECO). CENIT project

Nowadays, many sectors are demanding better materials, longer durabilities and new functionalities in their products. On the other hand, most of the leading sectors of the Spanish economy (automotion, household appliances, optics, ceramics, ) make use of several decorative superficial coatings. Within these and other sectors, market requirements demand a big effort in order to develop new products with competitive advantages. The ARTDECO project (Avances en Recubrimientos Tecnológicos para aplicaciones DECOrativas) emerges within this framework. ARTDECO is one of the 16 projects approved by the CENIT program (Consorcios Estratégicos Nacionales de Investigación Tecnológica) at the 2007 public contest. 
ARTDECO is focused on the development of processes for producing finished surfaces with enhanced and new functionalities. In addition, ARTDECO will generate an innovative helpful knowledge in order to create new products, processes or services. This knowledge will encourage the integration of strategic technologies in the consortium industries. 

Surface Functionalization of Materials for High Added Value Applications (FUNCOAT). Consolider-Ingenio CDS2008-00023

FUNCOAT aims at the development of advanced processes and techniques related to the surface functionalisation of materials to reach new properties and applications. The project integrates 20 different groups covering from basic research to final applications. These groups work in different Universities, CSIC (that acts as the entity responsible for the management of the project) and Technological Centres, having scientific relationships among them that extend over the last 15 years. The scientific and technological objectives are: understanding of fundamental phenomena driving the modification of surfaces and thin film growth, control of the micro- and nano-structure of surfaces and thin films, optimization of thin film deposition methods, development of multifunctional surfaces for diverse applications (mechanical, electrical, optical, magnetic, energy, biomaterials, etc ) and, finally, the development of new materials and devices based on functional surfaces for application in key industrial sectors. Other horizontal objectives include the technological transfer of the scientific results to the production sectors and the education and training of scientists, young researchers and engineers. The industrial sectors where the activities of FUNCOAT find a direct impact are metallurgy, glass and polymer, control and communications, health, energy and fuel cells. 

New Photonic Systems on a Chip based on DYEs for Sensor Applications Scalable at Wafer Applications (PHODYE). European project STREP nº 033793.

PHODYE is a multidisciplinary project that aims to develop a new sensing and recognition technology based on the integration of dye thin films with photonic structures. The developed devices should yield a distinct optical response according to changes in the environment that can be easily measured by a photonic chip or recognized directly by the human eye. The dye thin films will be prepared by a new plasma polymerization procedure that is fully compatible with the integrated optoelectronic technology. The dye molecules in the films react to changes in the concentration of certain gases and/or in temperature or UV radiation by a change of their absorption/fluorescence properties. By the use of photonic resonant structures an enhancement of the dye response is obtained achieving sensitivities below 10 ppm (NO2 detection) with a response time lower than 2 minutes. A key feature of the project is to achieve an effective optical coupling between the photonic structures and the film fluorescence/absorption response, so that changes in this latter can be transformed into proportional photonic signals or visible colour shifts

Nano Engineered Titania Thin Films for Advanced Materials Applications (NATAMA). European project STREP nº 032583.

The objective of this project is to investigate the new chemical, physical and optical properties which can be induced in titania thin films by exploiting novel nanoarchitectures (for example, spatially ordered titania nanotubes) and nanocomposites (controlled heterojunctions, doping with solid state sensitizers, nanostructured composite semiconductors) and novel low dimensional structures (ultra-thin titania films doped with hetero-atoms or decorated with nanoparticles).