Scientists from the CSIC’s Institute de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB) have developed a new concept for functional nanomaterials. It is a multilaminated material, a ‘millefeuille’ made of bacterial cellulose layers strongly attached. Each layer can have incorporated a different type of functional nanoparticle. This laminated material can be very thin: for example, the thickness of a four layer milfeuille is only the half of a conventional sheet paper.

Researchers from the CSIC and the laboratory CIBER- BBN have developed a simple procedure to isolate highly crystalline graphene. The method enables the graphene to be transferred from the silicon carbide substrate, where it has been formed, to any other one, such as a dielectric for electronic device applications.

A research team has modified the surface of plastics at micro and nanometric levels to give them additional properties such as hydrophobicity and colour without using dyes. This development can have many applications in the automotive sector.

CSIC scientists have developed a method and a mobile unit for monitoring construction materials and the nanoparticles released from them. The equipment has been recently tested and the results exceed expectations.

Scientists at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) have demonstrated the capacity of an organic material to quickly and reversibly change its colour and electrical properties upon the application of an electric field. The reported results constitute a proof-of-concept that opens up new possibilities for the design and fabrication of organic electrochromic and rectifying devices for electronics.

A method for obtaining and evaluating organic materials for photovoltaic applications 50 times faster than conventional methods has been developed. The study has been published in the Advanced Electronic Materials journal and performed in the framework of the ERC project FOREMAT, led by Mariano Campoy-Quiles, scientist at the ICMAB-CSIC.

The Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona of the CSIC leads the development in Spain of a ultrasensitive sensors which will be used in the forthcoming European space missions. They are extremely sensitive and miniaturized microcalorimeters, like small thermometers, and can even detect the energy of one single photon. They find also applications in others fields, such as nanotechnology, biomedicine or security.

A group of scientists from ICN2, CSIC and BIST has developed high-temperature "off/on" fluorescent sensors based on polymeric nanoparticles. They allow to follow the thermal history of a process or material in a simple, cheap and scalable way.