The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has inaugurated the Quantum Nanofabrication Area of the Clean Room at the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics (IMB-CNM), the largest research facility of its kind in Spain. The space becomes the country’s most advanced for fabricating devices and circuits at the nanometre scale.
The refurbishment cost more than €6 million, from the Complementary Plan for Quantum Communications and the PERTE Chip, funded by the European Union through the Next Generation EU funds. The new equipment includes the EBPG 5150Plus electron-beam lithography system, the most advanced in Spain, as well as microscopes for inspecting the devices at every stage of fabrication.
The tools will be available to the national and international scientific and technological community, with the aim of making it easier to move from fundamental research to devices with industrial potential in areas such as communications, quantum computing, health and energy. A further expansion of the clean room is planned in the coming months, with support from the Generalitat de Catalunya and European ERDF funds.
