Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IMM) - Section of Bologna

The Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IMM) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) is composed of 7 sections, located in Milan, Bologna, Rome, Napoli, Lecce and Catania. The Section of Bologna (IMM-BO) (http://www.bo.imm.cnr.it), whose staff comprises more than 50 people (researchers, technicians, administrative staff), is a multi-disciplinary research center that has been working on the study of materials and devices for microelectronics and MEMS for over 30 years. Thanks to the synergy between physics, engineers and chemistry IMM-BO provides a global and flexible approach to the development of innovative technologies for application specific areas.

The institute can embrace a wide area of knowledge, spanning from material characterization to the study of technological processes and from the design and fabrication of integrated devices to their integration in high TRL systems.

IMM Bologna is equipped with a wide range of facilities for design, manufacture, characterization of devices, and for investigation of materials properties and processes, allowing a global approach to material science, microelectronics and MEMS research activities.

IMM-BO has the largest publicly funded facility for silicon micro-machining in Italy (located in a 500 m2 ISO 5-8 Clean Room), capable of producing different non-VLSI devices, in particular micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS), 3rd generation solar cells and photovoltaic devices

Clean Room facility is mainly dedicated to the research and manufacture of microelectronics and MEMS devices, with possibility of carrying out a small-scale production of customized devices. Dedicated technologies have been developed for the manufacture of IR emitters, silicon thermopiles, bolometers, micro-hot plates, Single Photon Avalanche Detectors (SPAD), SiC diodes and MOSFETs, Mach-Zender interferometers based on LiNbO3, innovative photovoltaic cells, CNT structures, graphene-based structures, Silicon Photonic for DataCom application, Power Harvesting based on silicon nanowires, all-silicon micro gas chromatographs.

In addition and in synergic integration with the Silicon technologies, in IMM-BO research activities on carbon-based materials, like carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene are extensively carried out.

Structural and electrical diagnostic techniques have always played a crucial role in the research activity of IMM-BO, and the laboratory raised as a European excellence in the development and use of electron, ion and X-ray characterization techniques. The research activity in the structural characterization of materials focuses on electron crystallography, dopant profiling or development of imaging techniques for the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) and the low-energy scanning microscope (SEM). The laboratory is equipped to perform cryogenic TEM measurements on materials sensitive to radiation damage like graphenes or polymers.