On Wednesday, the principal of the Universitat de València, María Vicenta Mestre, has directed the opening ceremony of the VIII Congress of the Nanolithography Spanish Network, that will be extended to next Friday in the Auditorium Marie Curie of the Science Park of the Universitat de València. In this edition it is organised by the Molecular Science Institute.

In her intervention, the principal underlined the important progress that a subject such as Nanolithography has experienced in the last years, until finally becoming a promising technology that will be very useful for social development. “Research areas such as Nanotechnology are essential for making real those things that we would never imagined to see”, said the principal.

Before an audience with about 70 attendees from seven different countries, María Vicenta Mestre has expressed her “pride” about representing the first university in research of the Comunidad Valenciana university system and the fifth in Spain, according to Shangay ranking. “We form a first-rate researcher ecosystem in which scientists are the key element”, she added.

In the table, together with Mestre, were the director of the Universitat de València Scientific Park, Pedro Carrasco; the full university professor of Inorganic Chemistry and director of the ICMol, Eugenio Coronado and the national coordinator of the Nanolithography Spanish Network, José María de Teresa. In addition, the UV lecturer and ICMol researcher, Alicia Sánchez Forment, took the floor as a coordinator and hostess, a task that has shared with the ICMol researcher Rosa Córdoba.

In his speech, Pedro Carrasco celebrated the fact that the Science Park held international meetings of technical subjects “that are really close from their application”, and that, in a future, will become business. “Here you can grow”, he said. Eugenio Coronado highlighted the “relevance” that the researchers training area through the campus, seminars and specific masters have for the Nanolito Network. He named, by way of example, the master’s degree in Molecular Nanoscience that the ICMol offers.  

Nanolithography (or lithography on a nanometers scale) is a method that allows producing patterns and mechanisms as miniaturised as possible. One of its techniques is the atomic force miscroscopy, that uses chemical, electric, mechanic and thermal interactions, for modifying materials on a nanometric scale. There are numerous applications for developing prototypes: from the smallest and complex transistors to optical and chemical sensors.

Nanolito is the Nanolithography Spanish Network, sponsored since 2009 by the Ministry of Science. It is currently considered a NETWORK OF EXCELLENCE for knowledge exchange between Spanish agents (research groups, centres and business) in the nanolithography field.