FAME – Functionalised Advanced Materials and Engineering of Hybrids and Ceramics

In Europe today, the community of materials scientists and researchers working in the hybrids and ceramics field is not sufficiently united to face the challenges of international competition. Thanks to EU support from the Sixth Framework Programme's Networks of Excellence instrument, the FAME network has assembled a talented pool of experts and post-doc students in this important science.

Europe-wide, the team of 18 partner organisations is focusing on smart nano-materials, an emerging field drawing inspiration from nature and the living world. Nano-materials science is at the heart of a whole range of new devices and processes in fields as varied as micro- and nano-technology, telecommunications, healthcare and the environmental sciences. Breakthroughs, culminating in new, smart functions in these new materials, will lead to further device miniaturisation, reduced use of raw materials, and promote more energy efficiency. FAME will also be the catalyst for creating a virtual European Multifunctional Materials Institute (see the box “Mission Statement”).

Materials science underpins human development. It is the study of the composition, structure and processing of materials taking into account their properties and uses2.

Thanks to networks, such as FAME, Europe will be in a position to promote excellence, build market leadership in this advanced science and improve Europe's quality of life and well-being. This can be achieved through, for example, better training of doctoral students, and skill sharing and research exchanges between project partners.

“Together, this will form an incubator of complementary, coordinated skills,” the team explains. Their task is to understand better and, ultimately, master tomorrow's devices, as well as the complex physical, chemical and biological phenomena that may be used to control multifunctional, environmentally efficient materials.

Together with developments in biology, the field of advanced materials is a key driver of scientific and technological progress in the 21st century, according to the FAME consortium. The ability to design molecules and materials to replace traditional – more complex and bulky – structures and components will have a profound impact on many aspects of product development and supply. The advantages of smarter, smaller and lighter devices using advanced materials are many. They should be more portable and energy efficient, require less material to build, and have a smaller environmental impact.

Research on hybrid materials, by teams spread over the world, has taken off in the past decade, indicating a strong potential for creating materials and devices by merging inorganic, organic and biological sources – the so-called ‘bottom-up approach'. Hybrid materials are composites (for example, metals, ceramics and organic materials) of several structural phases.

The structure, organisation and properties obtained in such materials depend on the chemical nature of their components and the synergy between them. Hybrid materials are highly versatile which makes them better suited to the integration and miniaturisation of systems and devices, according to the research team. And they show promise in fields, such as optics, electronics, bio-medical devices, mechanics, membranes, functional and protective coatings, catalysis, sensors, and more.

The community of ceramic materials researchers is more established, thanks to the new knowledge provided by solid-state chemists and materials scientists, who have been able to forecast new materials and to stimulate the scaling down of functional devices – the ‘top-down approach'. Because of this, most of today's advanced ceramics and composites have sub-micron textures with well-controlled grain boundaries. Functional thin films and multi-layers for electronics are also included in this materials family. The use of nano-structured ceramics and thin films is the next step on the way to this scaling down. These days, in the ceramics world, the scaling-down approach is converging with the building-up approach used by hybrid scientists, the FAME network notes.

In the project, the materials will be studied both by using in-house techniques as well as large-scale facilities, such as X-ray synchrotron sources and neutron sources, located in partner countries or elsewhere. Both national resources and international infrastructures will be used. FAME is keen to maximise co-operation between its partners, to stimulate cost sharing and to create economies-of-scale with regard to Research Infrastructures.

Coordinated by the University of Bordeaux I (FR), FAME assembles around 190 researchers and 60 PhD students from seven countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, the UK and Israel). A few more research partners may join the project later. In addition, some 30 industrial companies have expressed a desire to take part in FAME's research and educational activities.

“The FAME Network of Excellence will assemble, integrate and expand on a world-class team of researchers in Europe in the domain of advanced functional materials – hybrids and ceramics – in order to establish a European Multifunctional Materials Institute (EMFMI) [which has] a legal and financial structure and [is] capable of remaining at the forefront of this emerging and strategically important family of materials technologies for tomorrow. The mission will encompass the development and implementation of short, medium and longer-term activities – spanning research processes and methods, the development of totally new multidisciplinary teams, education and the fostering of a multicultural cadre of researchers.”