Nano2Fun (Nanochemistry of molecular materials for 2-photon functional applications) has the main objective to train a new generation of scientists with a solid multidisciplinary scientific background, a good attitude to team-work in an international environment and a well-developed propensity to exploit advances in fundamental research towards innovative applications. To achieve this ambitious goal, a network of advanced research laboratories operating both in the public and private sectors is proposed where a group of 17 young and brilliant researchers will be trained through research.
Technological development through research and knowledge transfer are the flag-words of Nano2Fun, a multidisciplinary project that will bring the techniques of two-photon microscopy (2PM) and two-photon polymerization (2PP) to their full maturity, allowing their exploitation in commercially and industrially relevant applications.
The precise chemical and photophysical control of the 2PM and 2PP processes at the nanoscale will be achieved through a coordinated effort of 16 teams with well-established expertise in the diverse and complementary research fields of molecular and supramolecular synthesis, advanced optical spectroscopy and photophysics, theory and the 2PM and 2PP technological applications. The effort of the academic research teams will be fully integrated with applied research and development going on in the advanced R&D laboratories of the 5 partners from the private sector in a virtuous loop that will cooperatively enhance the effectiveness of Nano2Fun team and expedite the transfer of knowledge and techniques from the laboratory to the industrial scale. The inherently multidisciplinary character of the research, that spans a full range of disciplines between chemistry and physics, and is precisely located where fundamental research meets commercial and industrial applications, offers an extremely profitable environment for the education of young researcher both in public and private sectors in a lively international environment at the forefront of research.
Two-photon absorption (2PA) is a nonlinear optical process in which two photons are absorbed simultaneously by a system. The probability of absorbing one photon linearly scales with the light intensity, but the probability to absorb two photons at a time scales as the square of the light intensity. The superlinear dependence of the 2PA process on light intensity opens new perspectives for technological applications, and in particular adds a third dimension to light-initiated processes. The basic concept is simple and effective: as illustrated in Fig. 1, 2PA-initiated processes can be confined in the tiny region defined by the focus of a laser beam. This region then defines an elementary volume unit, called a voxel (in analogy with its two-dimensional counterpart, the pixel) whose size (down to ~ 0.001 μm3) and position can be controlled in 3D. Along these lines, in the last two decades 3D 2-photon microscopy (2PM) and 3D 2-photon polymerization (2PP) techniques grew as two new promising research fields with impressive applicative implications in fields ranging from bioimaging, biomedicine, nanofabrication of devices for photonics, biomedicine, microfluidics, etc. Bringing these two techniques to the full development up to the commercial/industrial application is the main scientific objective of Nano2Fun.