The Electrostatic control of micro- and nano-scale electronic devicesby exploiting the field effect is ubiquitous in nanoscience and technology and traditionally follows the metal-oxide-semiconductor approach. A novel route implying a true paradigm change envisions the use of soft matter as the gate medium for applying impressively high static electric fields to semiconductors or other materials. This method exploits the way of iontronics to electrostatic gating, using the movement and spatial organization of ions to build up an electric double layer that is the ultimate responsible for the gating action. IONTRONICS targets the control of electrical properties and functionality of electronic devices by exploiting ionic motion and arrangement, and represents an interdisciplinary field encompassing electrochemistry, solid-state physics, energy storage, electronics, and biological sciences. A key element driving the functionality of iontronic devices is the electric double layer (EDL) formed at the interface between an (electronically insulating) ionic conductor and an electronic conductor, e.g. an inorganic semiconductor. In this context, the use of IONIC LIQUIDS (ILs, salts in the liquid state at 300 K) for the realization of EDL transistors (EDLTs) was shown to yield very high local electric fields and efficient carrier-density modulation, and was recently applied to nanomaterials including 2D SYSTEMS (graphene, layered TMDs) as well as QUASI-1D SYSTEMS (nanowires, nanotubes). IONTRONICS AIMS AT presenting the most recent results achieved by the interdisciplinary community working on electric double layer transistors.
- nanomaterials
- ions
- micro- and nano-scale electronic devices
- ionic liquids
- electric double layer
- polyelectrolytes
- ionic motion and arrangement
- condensed matter physics
- electrochemistry
- sensing
- energy conversion
- computing
- physical ai
Roberto Fenollosa received his Ph.D. in Physics in 2000 and conducts research at the Instituto de Tecnología Química (Universitat Politècnica de València–Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas). His early work focused on photonic structures for optical confinement and optoelectronic applications, contributing to the development of micro- and nanophotonic architectures with engineered resonant properties. More recently, his research has shifted toward neuromorphic computing at the interface of materials science, photonics, and electronic devices with memory. His current interests include oscillatory and adaptive nanodevices, memristive and ionic–electronic systems, and circuit-level architectures capable of emulating nonlinear neural dynamics. The long-term objective of his work is to enable energy-efficient, brain-inspired hardware platforms for sensing, computation, and information processing.
Juan Bisquert (pHD Universitat de València, 1991) is a Distinguished Research Professor at Instituto de Tecnología Química (Universitat Politècnica de València-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas). He is Executive Editor for Europe of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. He has been distinguished in the list of Highly Cited Researchers from 2014 to 2024. The research activity of Juan Bisquert has been focused on the application of measurement techniques and physical modeling in several areas of energy devices materials, using organic and hybrid semiconductors as halide perovskite solar cells. Currently the main research topic aims to create miniature devices that operate as neurons and synapses for bio-inspired neuromorphic computation related to data sensing and image processing. The work on this topic combines harnessing hysteresis and memory properties of ionic-electronic conducting devices as memristors and transistors towards computational networks. The work is supported by European Research Council Advanced Grant.
Liza Herrera Diez is a CNRS research director at the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Palaiseau, France. She studied physical chemistry at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina and conducted her PhD work at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany while enrolled in the physics doctoral school at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
She has an interdisciplinary background in physics and chemistry. Her research focuses on magneto-ionics, which combines the analogue functionality of ionics with the binary nature of magnetism to develop reconfigurable multistate spintronic nanodevices. She coordinated the MSCA Innovative Training Network MagnEFi on electric-field effects in magnetic materials and devices, and currently coordinates the EU Pathfinder project METASPIN, which explores magneto-ionic approaches to design multifunctional nanodevices for neuromorphic hardware.
Shimpei OnoGaetano Scamarcio is Director of the Institute of Nanoscience (CNR-NANO) and Full Professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Bari (currently on leave). His research spans quantum optoelectronics, photonics, and, more recently, emergent collective phenomena in organic bioelectronics. He held full-time research positions at Bell Laboratories (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics (Germany) and completed visiting appointments at the Walter Schottky Institute (Munich), Bell Labs, and Université Paris Diderot.
Internationally recognised for inventing the superlattice quantum cascade laser, pioneering detectorless THz nanoscopy, and demonstrating that millimetre-scale electronic and optoelectronic devices can detect single molecules, he has published over 330 papers in leading journals such as Science, Advanced Materials, and Nature Communications. He holds several international patents and has coordinated large-scale national and European research consortia.
Gaetano Scamarcio’s research interests lie at the intersection of quantum optoelectronics, terahertz photonics, and organic bioelectronics. His work explores how collective physical phenomena, such as cooperative charge and dipole modulation and metastable transitions, emerge and can be controlled in inorganic/organic complex systems.
Luisa Torsi received her Laurea degree in Physics from the University of Bari in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences from the same institution in 1993. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Bell Labs from 1994 to 1996. In 2005 and 2006 she was invited professor at the University of Anger and Paris 7, respectively. Since 2005 she is a full professor of chemistry at the University of Bari and since 2017 she is an adjunct professor at the Abo Academy University in Finland.
In 2010 she has been awarded the Heinrich Emanuel Merck prize for analytical sciences, this marking the first time the award is given to a woman. Prof. Luisa Torsi is also the winner of the Wilhelm Exner Medal 2021 (https://www.wilhelmexner.org/en/). The medal has been awarded since 1921 by the Austrian Association of Industries to celebrate excellence in research and science and as many as 23 Nobel prize winners have been awarded too. She is also the recipient, at the British Library in London, of the 2015 main overall platinum prize of the Global-Women Inventors and Innovators Network. The IUPAC - International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry awarded her with the 2019 Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering. The analytical chemistry division of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS) conferred her the Robert Kellner Lecturer 2019.
Since 2020 she has been appointed National Representative for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action of Horizon Europe by the Italian Minister for Education and Research. She is also past president of the European Material Research Society being the first women to serve on this role. She has been also elected 2017 Fellow of the Material Research Society, for pioneering work in the field of organic (bio) electronic sensors and their use for point-of-care testing.
Awarded research funding for over 26 million € in thirteen years, comprises several European contracts as well as national and regional projects. She is coordinating the “Single molecule bio-electronic smart system array for clinical testing – SiMBiT” a H2020-ICT-2018-2020 research and innovation action financed with over 3 M€. The PRIN 17 national project “ACTUAL: At the forefront of Analytical ChemisTry: disrUptive detection technoLogies to improve food safety (2017RHX2E4)” is also coordinated by Torsi. She has also coordinated a “European Industrial Doctorate” Marie Curie project in collaboration with Merck and was principal investigator in a Marie Curie ITN. She has also coordinated a Marie Curie ITN European network, several national PRIN projects, and was principal investigator in an ICT STREP proposal. She has also been the scientific coordinator of a Structural Reinforcement PON Project awarded to UNIBA for 2012-2014 and is engaged with a number of other Structural Reinforcement PON projects.
Torsi has authored almost 230 ISI papers, including papers published in Science, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, PNAS, Advanced Materials, Scientific Reports, and is co-inventor of several international awarded patents. Her works gathered almost 13.500 Google scholar citations resulting in an h-index of 55. She has given more than 170 invited lectures, including almost 50 plenary and keynotes contributions to international conferences.
Prof. Torsi is committed to the role of model for younger women scientists. She has been giving a number of talks on this topic such as a TEDx talk. Prof. Torsi is one of the 100Experts (https://100esperte.it) a project led by Fondazione Bracco comprising an online databank with the names and CVs of female experts in STEM, a sector historically underrepresented by women but a strategic one for the economic and social development of Italy. In a recent campaign to foster the idea of gender equality in Science among children, prof. Torsi was featured in a story of TOPOLINO (Italian comic digest-size series of Disney comics), as “Louise Torduck”, a successful female scientist of the Calisota valley.
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