DFG promotes Braunschweig Research Training Group »NanoMet«

The nanoworld will in future be measured most accurately – and, indeed, in Braunschweig. On 9 May 2014, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (German Research Foundation) decided to promote the Research Training Group “Metrology for Complex Nanosystems” of the Technical University of Braunschweig and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). With a total funding amount of approx. 3.7 million euros, the research projects of 26 young scientists in the field of accurate measurement of ultrasmall and ultraprecise objects will be supported initially for the next four and a half years. The main focus of the central question “How accurately does one measure nanostructures?”, will be put on complex nano-objects, such as highly integrated chips, biological nanostructures and nanoparticles for medical use.

Metrology for complex nanosystems
The measurement of nanostructures, however, is not a routine task. “Many very important measurands of nanometrology require novel approaches”, as the spokesperson of the new Research Training Group, Professor Meinhard Schilling from the Institut für Elektrische Messtechnik und Grundlagen der Elektrotechnik (Institute of Electrical Metrology and Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering) of TU Braunschweig declared. To this end, TU Braunschweig and PTB, together with the Research Training Group “Metrology for Complex Nanosystems” (NanoMet), will jointly investigate new approaches for metrology in complex nanosystems. The scientific teaching programme of the Research Training Group will focus on physical, biological and quantum systems and, as a matter of principle, will follow an interdisciplinary approach.

“I congratulate the Technical University of Braunschweig on its success. To be selected by the German Research Foundation from numerous premium applications is strong proof of the outstanding quality of the concepts for the successful promotion of young scientists in Lower Saxony”, stated Gabriele Heinen-Kljajić, Minister of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony.

“This project has become possible through the long faithful and very successful collaboration of the researchers from physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and life sciences at TU Braunschweig with the colleagues at PTB”, explains Professor Schilling. The mutual activities at the “Braunschweig International Graduate School of Metrology (B-IGSM)” led to the founding of the “Metrologie-Initiative Braunschweig (MIB)” (Braunschweig Metrology Initiative) in 2013 and also include the new research building LENA (Laboratory for Emerging Nanometrology), for which the laying of the cornerstone is to be carried out this year yet. This new research center also encompasses the procurement of modern research equipment which will also be available to the Research Training Group “NanoMet”. Within the framework of the “Metrologie-Initiative Braunschweig” (Metrology Initiative Braunschweig) a new interdisciplinary Master’s degree studies course “Metrology and Analysis” for Bachelor’s degree recipients in the university studies programmes for mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics and chemistry at TU Braunschweig will be offered additionally in winter semester 2014, in which PTB is also involved.