From 16 September to 10 November 2024 it will be possible to submit proposals to access the laboratories and experimental techniques made available by the NFFA-DI nanoscience research infrastructure. Access to the laboratories will begin in March 2025.

NFFA-DI is a research infrastructure distributed across Italy created thanks to the funds of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which integrates cutting-edge instrumentation, computational resources and curation of scientific data according to the FAIR and open science principles.

The eight operational units of the National Research Council (project coordinator) are supported by those of the partners Area Science Park, Politecnico di Milano and Università degli Studi di Milano. The eleven operational units represent research centres of excellence in the nanoscience and nanotechnology sector in Italy.

One of the founding objectives of the project is to offer researchers from both the academia and industry the opportunity to carry out research projects by accessing, in person and remotely, the various laboratories located in the different geographical sites that are part of the project. User access to the infrastructure is regulated by an evaluation system of their proposals by an international panel of experts and may include a multistep approach.

NFFA-DI technical offer catalogue is available from 11 September on the new website, from which it will be also possible to present proposals and monitor the progress of the technical-scientific evaluation process and access programming.

The offer is composed of about a hundred tools enhanced thanks to the project funds, relating to more than 40 scientific techniques grouped thematically into five different typologies (Installations):

• Installation 1 - Lithography and nano-patterning
• Installation 2 - Growth and synthesis
• Installation 3 - Advanced characterization and fine analysis
• Installation 4 - Theory and simulation of nanostructures
• Installation 5 - Raising to the intermediate Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

"NFFA-DI offers in an integrated way complementary methods and techniques for research on the properties of matter at the nanometric scale and for the growth and nanofabrication of quantum materials. This offer allows to develop multiscale projects on functional systems, providing continuity of investigation through the TRLs (from 1 to 5) with interoperable tools and data" – Cristina Africh (CNR-IOM) – NFFA-DI coordinator.

A further cornerstone of NFFA-DI project is the creation of a global system for managing research data through the application of Fair-by-design technology (where the acronym Fair indicates compliance with the principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability) to all experimental and computational resources.

This call is the first of two foreseen within the project, approved and funded by the MUR, to test the functioning of the access process managed centrally by a single digital and innovative platform.