Nanotechnology and nanofabrication: opportunities for innovation

The focus of the Horizon 2020 points to technological innovation and two of the three pillars of the European program and numerous instruments aim to promote and develop innovation processes. In fact, several bottlenecks are still present on the way of the innovation process despite the strong efforts of the governance structures at national and European level. An emblematic case is that of nanotechnologies, which potentially affect several vital fields such as healthcare, energy, environment and manufacturing. To unlock potential benefits at the most, it is necessary to reduce the ‘valley of death’ and enhance the record of accomplishment in transforming breakthroughs into commercially valuable innovations. In particular, the role of nanostructuring electronic devices will be considered as an example of a particularly impacting track in the innovation roadmap. The ability in manipulating with the required control and accuracy of Si nanocrystals and semiconducting ultra-thin films is in fact at the basis of new and extremely innovative devices based on semiconducting nanostructure.