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Isabelle Sagnes - CNRS Research Director; INSIS project expert for Photonic and Nanotechnologies









1) Today, RENATECH, started in 2003, is a colaborative group for research into micro-nana production. How has this network impacted on scientific research?



The RENATECH network, standing for REseau NAtional des grandes centrales de TECHnologie, is a GIS bringing together five CNRS/Universities laboratories spread throughout the country and highly involved in technological research. The GIS brings together the 5 centres of technology (IEMN, LTM, LAAS, FEMTO-ST and C2N) and is overseen by INSIS (a CNRS institute) and the five concemed universities. RENATECH represents a research infrastructure of 7300 m² of clean rooms and about 130M€ of equipment, open to the various contributors (more than 4500 permanent researchers, teaching-researchers, engineers and technicians) and industria/s (PME, ET/, start-up) via a unique national web site to which al/ projects can be submitted (www.renatech.org).

ln order to deve/op nanosciences and nanotechnologies in France, RENATECH has always had three main objectives:
  • To have readily available technological platforms of the highest international standard for the creation of technological procedures and future features, and to perfect the order of assembly;
  • To make progress in the field of nanosciences on the understanding of physical and chemical phenomena at atomic, molecular and supramolecular levels;
  • To develop ways of visualising, characterising and the required measuring, in order to validate fundamental research in physics and technology, and to perfect technological procedures.

The RENATECH network currently allows national laboratories to take advantage of a competitive infrastructure on a worldwide level in order to carry out R&D projects that require up to the minute technology for micro and nanotechnology. The opening of the national community enables any project sponsor to benefit from access to state-of-the-art equipments and to provide efficient and cost-effective answers to the needs of research and innovation. ln 2015 over 500 extemal projects (scientifically sponsored by collaboraters outside the network) were implemented. Networking ensures that state-of-the-art scientific and techno/ogica/ know-how continues.
Scientific and technological exchanges between the /aboratory researcher-technologists, engineers and technicians, enables them to propose the most appropriate laboratory to the national community, for any given project. These past few years, the national coordination put in place has enabled comprehensive procedures integrating the stages carried out on different sites to be developed.  


2) 2 The RENATECH+ network project is being put together. How does the clean room at the Institut d'Alembert fit in to the national link between the five large laboratories and the « satellites » ?

The RENATECH+ project proposes  scaling up of the RENATECH feature in order to increase our level of service (on  quantity and quality basis), as wel1 as our user community (particularly industrial and international). Such an objective can be attained by associating a second circle of infrastructures and Nanotechnology to the RENATECH network: The RENATECH+ network. The RENATECH "integration" laboratories, bring together all of the material allowing production projects to be conducted on the same site, from producing the innovative materials to the completed components. However there exists a group of smaller academic laboratories (local or specific laboratories, representing about 5000 m² of clean rooms) of which certain ones have developed specific techniques which add to the skills of RENATECH. The proposal consists of increasing the size of RENATECH by associating a second circle of specific laboratories, such as the clean room for a micro-nano production at the Institut d'Alembert, thereby undertaking to provide production serice for the unique technologies that it commands. The wider network (RENATECH+) would propose, to both academic and industrial users, a serice rich in high level technologies as wel1 as a reinforced potential from concept realisation and testing. This up scaling of RENATECH is obviously dedicated to the efforts of exploratory research, basic industrial development being overseen by our partners, who wil1 take over with regards to overseeing economical development.