NANOHEAT:

NANOSCALE HEAT TRANSFER AND EXPLOITATION

TECHNICAL ANNEX
1 S&T EXCELLENCE
1.1 SOUNDNESS OF THE CHALLENGE

Heat control is of critical importance to efficiently manage the energy resources of nature, which are
under increasing stress due to the growing world population, energy-hungry economic models, and
global warming issues (www.cop21paris.org). With the continuous miniaturization of devices with
enhanced rates of operation, the management of heat transfer has become very challenging, as
demonstrated by, for example, the relatively low efficiency of the best thermoelectric (~7%) and
thermophotovoltaic (~24%) systems, as well as the high percentage (~68%) of energy lost in
developed countries as waste heat that is mainly released into the environment
(https://flowcharts.llnl.gov). These representative figures show the magnitude of the current scientific,
technological, and societal challenges in the energy sector, which need to be overcome to propel
Europe to the forefront of thermally-driven nanotechnologies. The purpose of the NanoHeat COST
Action is to understand and tailor the thermal performance of the nanomaterials and
nanostructured materials involved in these present and future technologies.

The NanoHeat Action is based on the visionary idea that emerged from both academic research and
industry: to structure, homogenize, expand, and consolidate the research network in nanoscale
heat transfer. This Action is triggered by the theoretical and experimental studies that demonstrate
the dramatic differences of heat transfer on the nanoscale compared to the bulk, which impact on our
ability to manage heat in nanoscale devices and open up opportunities to create and exploit new
thermal functionalities. An original feature of NanoHeat is the structuring of both theoretical and
experimental European skills in nanoscale heat transfer through the creation of a common
language and architecture with European communities of physicists, materials and
optoelectronic scientists, chemists, and biologists dealing with the nanomaterial fabrication,
thermal modelling, thermal characterization, and applications. By addressing both the management of
heat on the nanoscale and its exploitation, the NanoHeat Action will have a direct impact on an
extraordinary wide range of existing and future applications, such as thermoelectricity,
thermophotovoltaics, thermotronics (thermal computing), thermal energy harvesting, imagers, thermal
therapies, electronic cooling, and data storage in the promised future by the Internet of Things. The
Action time line will be structured to balance the long-term vision of innovative research for fulfilling
societal needs and industrial competitiveness, as a result of the synergy of national research groups
and high-tech industrial research centers. NanoHeat will thus represent a European building block
for developing novel devices made up of nanomaterials and/or nanostructured materials with
optimized thermal performances.

1.1.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

The science of thermal transport has reached a critical point where theory is predicting disruptive
transport and functional material properties on the nanoscale, while experimental capabilities are
reaching the nanoscale. These new transport phenomena and capabilities are unlocking the gates for
the investigation of novel paradigms in nanoscale heat transfer and will have an important impact on
the next generation of nanodevices. Taking into account the current development of experimental and
theoretical techniques, we have identified the following seven key science and technological areas
with the greatest potential for advancement: heat management at nanoscale, thermoelectricity,
thermophotovoltaics, thermotronics, near-field radiation, functional thermal materials, and
biological materials. The state-of-the-art in these relevant areas is illustrated by some representative
examples listed from fundamental to more applicative topics, as follows:

In Relation to Theoretical Results:

• The thermal conductance of single ballistic channels is quantized and does not depend on the heat
carriers’ nature (bosonic, fermionic, anyonic), as predicted theoretically and demonstrated
experimentally. Yet, correlated physics can be revealed by half values of the quantum of conductance
or Coulomb blockade of heat.
• A new thermodynamic theory has been proposed to study nanoscale heat radiation and the
Casimir forces among objects at different temperatures. The theory allows to determine the
efficiencies of energy conversion for two and three objects, which may be exploited for small-scale
energy harvesting. The case of many bodies, of practical importance, remains unexplored.
• First-principles molecular dynamics simulations can now be applied to study heat transport in
nanomaterials without being limited to the poor level of predictability of interatomic potentials. This
method is particularly useful for studying functional nanomaterials with homopolar bonds, as is the
case of disordered and correlated phase-change materials.
• The effective thermal conductivity of crystalline silicon nanoparticles can be reduced by a factor of
about 99% by coating them with an amorphous shell. The thermal properties of GaN nanoclusters
implanted in amorphous SiO2 can now be analysed by Molecular Dynamics Simulations.
• Screw dislocations can reduce the thermal conductivity of SiC and Si nanowires as well as of bulk
GaN by a factor of two. It has been found that the thermal conductivity of these materials is inversely
proportional to both the elastic energy of dislocations and temperature, which provides an effective
method to tailor their thermal performances.
• The Kapitza interface thermal conductance can significantly be reduced by the destructive
interference of lattice waves (phonons) propagating through two or more different phonon paths
provided by atomic-scale defects. For an interface made up of Ge atoms embedded in a Si crystal, the
suppression of the phonon transmittance occurs in the terahertz frequency range, which is relevant for
thermoelectricity near room temperature. This effective suppression can also be achieved with
nanophononic resonators at the interface of metamaterials.
• Thermophononic crystals and superlattices capable of sustaining a wave-like heat propagation
propagation on short time and spatial scales can now be used to tune coherence effects and
customize the thermal conductivity.
• The emission spectrum of nanoparticles can be enhanced to values higher than those predicted by
the Planck’s blackbody radiation law, through the increase of their absorption cross-section to values
higher than their geometrical one. This resonant behavior of the absorption cross-section can be
achieved by fine tuning of the nanoparticle size and permittivity. In this so-called super-Planckian
n+4
regime, the emitted power typically increases with temperature T by means of the power law T , with
0<n<7, which has potential applications for the fabrication of nano antennas.
• Radiative thermal currents can be switched on and off by means of a thermal diode with an
efficiency as high as 90%. This record-breaking rectification is generated by the metal-insulator
transition of VO2, which undergoes a strong variation of their thermal and optical properties within a
small temperature range (~6 K), near room temperature. The development of thermal diodes and
thermal transistors for rectifying and amplifying heat currents represents one of the new research
fields named Thermotronics by analogy to electronics.
• A thermoelectric figure of merit ZT higher than 2 can now be obtained for systems based on
graphene nanoribbons, carbon nanofibers, and nano-dots. Higher ZT values requires the development
of nanomaterials with ultra-low thermal conductivity, while maintaining a high electrical conductivity
and Seebeck coefficient.
• Near-field thermophotovoltaic devices enable to improve the harvesting of thermal radiation power
when converted into electricicity.

In Relation to Experimental Demonstrations and Techniques:

• A unique instrument combining a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a scanning thermal
microscope (SThM) based on the atomic force microscopy (AFM) has recently been developed for
measuring the thermal conductance of nano-junctions and suspended materials, such as nanowires
and nanomembranes. This first-of-its-kind experimental setup takes into account the dominant heat
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transfer mechanisms between the tip and sample, and therefore yields highly accurate measurements
of the topography and temperature (and hence of the thermal conductance) at the surface of samples.
• SThM based on a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM) operated in ultra-high vacuum with
well-defined separations down to a few tens of picometers and a demonstrated spatial resolution of
about 6 nm, has recently been developed for the thermal investigation of ultrathin films, atomic layers,
self-assembled monolayers, and nanostructures.
• Advanced thermal characterization techniques, such as the 3w and Raman thermometry are
cutting-edge methods recently adapted to accurately measure the thermal conductivity (k) and
interface thermal resistance of complex systems, such as 2D nanomaterials, hierarchical periodic
nanostructures, liquids, and colloidal suspensions. The 3ω technique is a contact method (heater and
sensor deposited on the sample) able to reach very high resolutions (Dk/k =10- ) with a sensitivity
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-1 -1
better than 0.01 Wm K , while Raman thermometry is an optical method (light as probe and
excitation) that map temperature fields with a nanometer resolution in a contactless fashion. This
research area is paramount for developing future technologies, since the performance and reliability of
nearly every technological application depend on the thermal properties of its constitutive materials.
• Semiconductor and plasmonic nanosctructures enables to finely confine and control the
dynamics of high frequency acoustic phonons.
• Frequency- and time-domain thermoreflectance as well as frequency and spatial
photothermal radiometry techniques operating with frequencies up to 100 MHz and spatial
resolutions as high as 50 µm, allow measuring the thermal properties of thin films, multilayers, and
membranes involved in optoelectronics and various energy conversion applications (solar
photovoltaics, thermophotovoltaics, thermoelectrics, etc.).
• A time-resolved spectromicroscopy platform, based on Asynchronous Optical Sampling (ASOPS)
and supercontinuum light generation has recently been developed for measuring heat transients on a
single nano-object and over time scales ranging from 100 femtoseconds to 10 nanoseconds. The
ASOSP technique does not involve any moving mechanical parts, allows reaching superior acquisition
speeds and detection sensitivity as compared to standard pump-probe set-ups, and thus paves the
way to spatial mapping of ultra-fast thermal transients in nanocircuits.
• SThM probes that can be fully submerged in aqueous solutions have open up the thermal
study of liquids and biological material for the first time.

As many of the advances in nanoscale thermal science are being enabled by the development of
experimental techniques capable of probing thermal properties with unparalleled spatial and temporal
resolution, NanoHeat brings together both the developers of much of this state-of-the art
instrumentation and those with the highest level of expertise in thermal measurements.

1.1.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE CHALLENGE (MAIN AIM)

There is a strong worldwide research effort to harness the potential of heat transfer in electronic,
phononic, photonic, thermoelectric, thermophotovoltaic, thermotronic, optoelectronic, and medical
devices operating with nanomaterials and/or nanostructured materials, such as phononic crystals,
nanocomposites, and magnetocaloric, polymeric and phase-change materials. Over the last few
decades, the techniques (Nanoimprint lithography, dry etching, self-assembly of block copolymers,
etc.) to fabricate these materials with dimensions ranging from a few nanometers to hundreds of
nanometers has rapidly matured along with the theoretical (molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo, density
functional theory, Boltzmann transport equation, Green functions, fluctuation-dissipation theorem, etc.)
and experimental (scanning thermal microscopy, Raman scattering thermometry, thermoreflectance,
3w, etc.) tools required to understand and tune the dynamics of the heat carriers (phonons, electrons,
and photons) propagating inside them. In Europe, several national and international projects (ERC,
H2020, and national programs) are investigating various aspects of the nanoscale heat transfer in
these devices, which are expected to revolutionize the energy management, in the near future.
However, this diversity is one of the challenges to progress, as scientists are working in many different
subfields and distributed in different communities with limited interactions. This is the reason why
several European research groups agree that a broad and cross-disciplinary forum is needed to
strengthen the European competitiveness through a structured cooperation for exploiting the
cumulated knowledge on nanoscale heat transfer in a wide variety of emergent applications.
NanoHeat aims to tackle this fragmentation challenge by bringing together theorists,
experimentalists, technologists, and industrialists in the field of heat transfer in nanomaterials
and nanostructured materials involved in applications driven by thermal phenomena.

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Nanoscale heat transfer is a dynamical research field as demonstrated by the annual publication of
hundreds of European scientific articles in high-impact journals and the organization of long-standing
and relatively new conferences devoted to nanoscale heat transfer, such as Phononics
(https://phononics2019.org), Phonons (http://phonons2018.csp.escience.cn) and NanoRad
(http://www.nanorad2017.org). These articles and conferences have helped several research groups
to present and tackle the fundamental and applicative challenges in nanoscale heat transfer to various
extents. However, to overcome most of these scientific challenges and capitalize on the full European
potential in nanoscale heat transfer, there is a clear need to assemble a critical mass of expertise and
foster world-class European research in this field with intense networking. The NanoHeat Action will
thus significantly facilitate the understanding and control of the fundamental mechanisms of heat
transfer at nanoscale, which is crucial to achieving much-needed breakthroughs in a broad variety of
devices involving a new generation of nanomaterials with tailored thermal performances. By
addressing this aspect of the energy challenge, the outputs of NanoHeat will have a direct
impact on the quality of life of European society.

1.2 PROGRESS BEYOND THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

1.2.1 APPROACH TO THE CHALLENGE AND PROGRESS BEYOND THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

The NanoHeat COST Action aims at integrating many of the leading European research groups
to act as a catalyzer of research on nanoscale heat transfer by improving their networking and
collaboration. This is the background and fundamental principle of NanoHeat, which, beside its
network of proposers, already counts with the declared interest to participate of many of these groups.
To avoid the problem of duplicating financial, scientific, and technical efforts of small groups of
researchers dispersed in different laboratories and companies throughout Europe, without improving
the outcome for European citizens, NanoHeat will provide a flexible networking framework that
allows for frequent meetings and exchanges among researchers all over Europe. Following the
COST rules, NanoHeat will fundamentally be open for the incorporation of new research groups,
providing the necessary flexibility to tackle the most pressing and timely questions within the
nanoscale heat transfer community. In this way, the Action will combine the existing knowledge and
resources required to ensure that European science reaches its full potential on the "nano" aspects of
the next generation of thermal devices that are appearing worldwide.
NanoHeat envisions progress beyond the state-of-the-art in the following directions:
Thermal characterization
The first important progress in NanoHeat will be the joint thermal characterization of
nanomaterials and nanostructured materials, through the theoretical and experimental
determination of their thermal properties. This seeks to capitalize on the recent progress made in
national and EU projects, where a coordinated approach is now required to tailor and document these
properties in a systematic manner and in agreement with the special needs of industry. In particular,
more studies are required to assess the uncertainty, sensitivity, and resolution associated with various
numerical methods and experimental techniques. The second progress consists in the
establishment of measurement protocols that take into account the multilevel complexity of each of
the contact and contactless methods described in the state-of-the-art section. This development aims
to standardize the experimental determination of thermal properties, increase the signal-to-noise ratio
and sensitivity of the used techniques, adapt experimental setups and theoretical models to the
sample geometry, design and fabricate more sensitive probes, improve the software required to
suppress experimental artifacts, and provide guidance for realizing a traceable chain of measurements
starting from primary standards up to specialized techniques (metrological traceability). These
assessments are essential for properly comparing data from different experimental and/or theoretical
sources, and hence for determining the real thermal performance of nanomaterials in a particular
application. NanoHeat aims at providing reliable and consistent information about the values of
thermal properties of different nanomaterials along with the theoretical and experimental tools
used to determine them, by means of user guides and a data handling facility (website) for
thermal sciences, which is missing nowadays in Europe. These means will enable us to publish
some open-access benchmarking data that can be very useful for researchers dealing with numerical
methods or experimental techniques to compare their results with benchmarks for different
nanomaterials and heat transfer regimes. This integrated approach constitutes a significant progress
beyond the state of the art that can be achieved by the NanoHeat Action (see Fig. 1), due to the
participation of researchers from different fields of nanoscale heat transfer and the potential
involvement of representatives from various innovative technological sectors, such as automotive
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(Volkswagen, Renault, Fiat, Skoda, Volvo,…), aviation (Airbus, Safran,…), rail (Alstom, Siemens,
Thales, …), space (Airbus space, Ariane space,…), and building (www.vinci-construction.fr,
www.hochtief.com, www.saint-gobain.com/fr, www.group-acs.com, www.bosch.com,…) industries.

Joint Actions
Scientific Missions
Training Events
Workshops
Nanomaterials and Dissemination
European Research Nanostructures
Groups (30+)

Joint Capacity
Improved Modelling
NanoHeat Advanced Experiments
Refined Fabrication
Tailored Industrial Applications
European Industries thermal Novel devices with
properties improved thermal

Joint Impact
performance Young researchers
Stakeholders
Industry
Society

Figure 1: Scheme of the inputs and outputs of the NanoHeat COST Action.

Thermal energy research tools

NanoHeat will develop, improve, and provide the next generation of simulation tools to
describe and understand the heat transfer mechanisms (ballistic dynamics, wave nature,
confinement, coherence, tunnelling, interference, hyperbolic heat transfer, etc.) in nanomaterials and
nanostructured materials. This in-depth theoretical approach will allow to explore different alternatives
for the design, fabrication, and operation conditions of these materials as well as for separating each
of these mechanisms. In collaboration with the experimentalists participating in NanoHeat, the
obtained theoretical findings will be contrasted with experimental data, for validation,
improvement or correction. In order to assess the thermal responses of different nanostructures
under a given thermal excitation, the collective dynamics of the energy carriers responsible for the
heat transfer will be simulated and quantified, including their enhanced confinement and interface
scattering. Such simulation tools are thus of utmost importance to evaluate nanomaterials and devices
with improved thermal performances (figures of merits and efficiencies), and will consequently have a
big impact on various technological applications (see Fig. 1).

1.2.2 OBJECTIVES

1.2.2.1 Research Coordination Objectives

• To develop a common and consolidated understanding of the heat transfer at nanoscale by
integrating both experiment and theory. This will enable the coordination and comparison between
experimentation and theory for uncovering and exploiting the full potential of European research
on heat transfer in nanomaterials and devices.
• To gather European strategic actors with common scientific and technological goals for developing
and testing new nanomaterials with optimized thermal performances for diverse applications,
including thermoelectrics, thermophotovoltaics, thermotronics, phononics, electronics, etc.
• To optimize European resources and efforts in nanoscale heat transfer, by making possible to
avoid the duplication of research activities in a field characterized by small groups working
independently and in different research subfields. This coordination will enhance and reinforce
Europe’s leading position in thermal technologies.
• To identify, define, and coordinate new research aims, strategies, and activities for advanced
technologies in nanoscale heat management and applications.

1.2.2.2 Capacity-building Objectives

• To create, structure, coordinate and maintain an open, flexible and long-standing European
network of experts driving the scientific development on nanoscale heat transfer. Closer
collaboration and increasing organization of available knowledge will disclose state-of-the art
nanotechnologies, not only in the academic world but also to industrial partners.

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• To bridge the gap among traditionally separated research groups with complementary knowledge
and a common interest in nanoscale heat transfer by facilitating their collaboration to design,
model, fabricate, and characterize novel nanomaterials that can be tested in an application
context. This will thus allow spreading the science and technology in this research field to both low
and high research-intensive countries across Europe.
• To train and improve the employment of the next generation of researchers and stakeholders in the
growing field of heat transfer in nanomaterials required for developing new devices with enhanced
thermal functionalities. This will have a great societal impact in terms of not only better energy
management, but also considerable economic benefits, as it will strengthen the competitiveness of
the energy sector.
• To network many academic and industrial laboratories conducting research on the thermal
properties of nanomaterials. This will provide to European researchers, early-career investigators
(ECIs), and industrial partners a reliable know-how to tailor nanomaterials and translate their
innovation into tangible and successful new market applications.

2 NETWORKING EXCELLENCE
2.1 ADDED VALUE OF NETWORKING IN S&T EXCELLENCE

2.1.1 ADDED VALUE IN RELATION TO EXISTING EFFORTS AT EUROPEAN AND/OR

INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

NanoHeat will establish a new scientific breakthrough network in nanoscale heat transfer that is
lacking in Europe nowadays. This Action aims to foster the impact of past and current EU funded
projects about nanoscale heat transfer, such as:

• EFINED, an EU collaborative project to develop nanodevices based on electron cooling by energy

filtering, grant agreement N° 766853, 2018 – 2021 (http://www.efined-h2020.eu).
• Thermal NanoSciences and NanoEngineering Group, a European research network on thermal
sciences. 2015 – 2019 (http://www.thermalnano.eu),
• QUANTIHEAT, an EU large scale collaborative project to develop quantitative scanning probe
microscopy techniques for heat transfer management in nanomaterials and nanodevices, grant
agreement N° 604668, FP7, 2013 – 2017 (www.quantiheat.eu),
• EUPHONON, a coordination action for building a European nanophononics community, project
reference FP7-ITC-612086, 2013 – 2014 (www.phantomsnet.net/EUPHONON),
• NANOTHERM, a project for developing innovative nano and micro technologies for advanced
thermo and mechanical interfaces, grant agreement N° 318117, 2012 – 2015 (http://project-
nanotherm.com), and
• UPTEG, an ERC project dedicated to Unconventional Principles of ThermoElectric Generation,
grant agreement N° 338179, 2013 – 2019 (https://microelecsi.iemn.fr/projects/upteg).

These and other projects related to nanoscale heat transfer have involved the cooperative work of
research groups from different European countries. This Action intends to keep and feed this
emerging cooperation by means of networking activities at a broader European level, including
the participation of ERC-project holders and industrial partners. NanoHeat will network research
groups with expertise on the theoretical and experimental thermal characterization of nanomaterials
with other groups working on their fabrication in the form of nanofilms, nanoparticles, nanocomposites,
nanocrystals, and other fine architecture nanostructures, as well as on their integration into devices.
This networking of collaborative nature in nanoscale heat transfer does not exist nowadays in
Europe and will significantly contribute to the coordination of interdisciplinary research efforts
across Europe, which is required to facilitate the fast and efficient exchange of information among
different areas of expertise and applications.

NanoHeat is related to other COST Actions, such as: i) CA15107 (Multi-functional nano-carbon
composite materials network), which has been running since 2016 with the goal of improving the
mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of carbon nanotubes and graphene layers. ii) CA16218
(Nanoscale coherent hybrid devices for superconducting quantum technologies) that started its
activities in 2017 with the aim of developing nano-sized hybrids of superconductors with magnets,
insulators, semiconductors or metals. Given that these COST Actions have been dealing with
particular types of nanomaterials, NanoHeat aims at interacting with them to apply the

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obtained knowledge and functionalities related to heat transfer, which is the focus of the
present Action proposal, in a wider variety of nanomaterials and nanostructured materials
based on insulators, dielectrics, semiconductors, metals, polymers, and biological materials.

2.2 ADDED VALUE OF NETWORKING IN IMPACT

2.2.1 SECURING THE CRITICAL MASS AND EXPERTISE

The NanoHeat COST Action gathers a pool of experts (researchers, ECIs, and industrial partners)
associated till now in informal and/or local small networks covering a large scientific spectrum of
nanoscale heat transfer. This Action will promote an open and formal collaboration between the
existing and new research groups working on theoretical and experimental aspects. This outreaching
framework for teaming up will lead to a faster identification of challenges, the selection of proper
strategies for working out solutions, the unification of partial progresses into a common picture, and
therefore, to the development of new understandings and applications of heat transfer in
nanomaterials, which will enhance the competitiveness of European science, technology, and
industry. The coordination and integration through this Action of the achievements funded by regional,
national, and European research projects dealing with specific topics on heat transfer will generate a
broad knowledge base for the entire field of nanotechnology. NanoHeat will thus stimulate the
European research competitiveness with regard to the corresponding ones in the United
States and Asian countries, where huge coordinated research and development programs are
currently being or have been deployed, such as the American program for thermal management
technologies (www.darpa.mil/program/thermal-management-technologies), the international center for
heat and mass transfer (www.ichmt.org), the Chinese institute of engineering thermophysics
(english.iet.cas.cn), and the Japanese science and technology program for the thermal design,
fabrication, and application of innovative nanomaterials
(www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/29/03/1382733.htm). This Action will capitalize on the long-standing
individual connections and collaborations among its proposers, to ensure a successful network
coordination, the publication of joint scientific articles, the registration of shared patents, and the co-
participation in national, European, and international research projects.

The present proposal of the NanoHeat COST Action has been prepared with the active participation of
30 research groups and 3 industrial partners from 13 countries ordered from west to east: Spain,
France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia,
Slovenia, and Russia. The first 8 of these countries are COST full members, the next 4 ones are
COST Inclusiveness Target Countries, while Russia is a COST Near Neighbour Country. The network
of proposers has 18% of female partners, which is comparable to the women/men fraction currently
present in science and technology research fields in Europe. We aim at rising this women participation
as much as possible, in order to reach an appropriate gender balance, with both men and women
having equal opportunities in all activities and leadership positions (including management, research,
networking, and scientific integration) of the NanoHeat COST Action. Furthermore, all research groups
involve early-career researchers, whose number and participation are expected to increase, as more
groups join this Action, once started. By involving specific partners to collaborate in the seven focused
research fields of NanoHeat, new and existing knowledge on nanoscale heat transfer will be
combined, integrated and exploited. The Action will look for complementarity in expertise on
nanomaterials design and development, thermal performance assessment, as well as communication
and dissemination to all stakeholders, creating a conducive environment to bridge existing gaps, avoid
overlapping, and achieve fruitful collaborations with maximum synergy.
Among the 30 above-mentioned research groups, 20% belong to the working group synthesis and
fabrication (WG1), 35% to theory and modelling (WG2), 30% to experimental characterization and
metrology (WG3), and 15% to WG1 and WG3. The initial consortium has thus a critical mass with a
balanced distribution of expertise and geographical participation needed for addressing the proposed
challenges and objectives. Based on the national estimates provided by the representatives of the
research groups and taking into account the possible financial support by the COST Association, the
economic dimension of the activities to be carried out under the NanoHeat Action has been
estimated, in 2019 prices, at about 19 million Euros.

2.2.2 INVOLVEMENT OF STAKEHOLDERS

In addition to the network of proposers of the NanoHeat COST Action composed of 30 research
groups from 13 European countries, which involve outstanding senior researchers and ECIs, including
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PhD and master students, the most relevant stakeholders are the Small and Medium-sized
Enterprises (SMEs), large companies, related COST Actions, thermal science societies, neighbour
research laboratories, European platforms, policy makers, and lobbies. Our cooperative work to
widely disseminate the significant networking benefits of the NanoHeat Action to research
collaborators and national laboratories will promote the Action visibility for attracting and
involving these stakeholders of COST member states, Near Neighbour Countries (NNCs), and
International Partner Countries (IPCs). Other activities planned to draw the attention, involve, and
get committed the stakeholders into the Action are the following:

• Dissemination by means of the organization of technology transfer workshops to clusters

representing SMEs and large companies in relevant stakeholder groups.
• To establish links with European technology platforms, such as the European initiative for
sustainable development by Nanotechnologies (Nanofutures, http://nanofutures.eu) and the
European technology platform for advanced engineering materials and technologies (EuMaT,
http://www.eumat.eu).
• To strengthen collaborative links with the European Materials Characterization Council (EMCC,
http://www.characterisation.eu), the Association for European NanoElectronics ActivitieS
(AENEAS, www.aeneas-office.org) as well as with the European Virtual Institutes on Thermal
Metrology (www.evitherm.org) and on Knowledge-based Multifunctional Materials
(http://aisbl.kmm-vin.eu).
• To identify and invite to participate further relevant stakeholders, such as research groups in
COST member states not participating yet in the Action, relevant scientists from IPCs, etc.
• To provide press releases on major advances, by aiming at the newsletters of industrial clusters,
platforms, and associations with relevant stakeholders.

2.2.3 MUTUAL BENEFITS OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF SECONDARY PROPOSERS FROM

NEAR NEIGHBOUR OR INTERNATIONAL PARTNER COUNTRIES OR INTERNATIONAL
ORGANISATIONS

The participation of Russia as a COST Near Neighbour Country, will mainly allow us to take
advantage of the wide expertise of a professor working at the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics,
on modelling the heat transfer through crystal interfaces, which will result in mutual benefits for
developing new nanomaterials with many applications relevant to NanoHeat.

3 IMPACT
3.1 IMPACT TO SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND COMPETITIVENESS, AND
POTENTIAL FOR INNOVATION/BREAK-THROUGHS

3.1.1 SCIENTIFIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND/OR SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS (INCLUDING

POTENTIAL INNOVATIONS AND/OR BREAKTHROUGHS)

Taking into account that our understanding of the heat transfer in nanomaterials and nanostructured
materials has significantly improved over the past few decades, we, the NanoHeat proposers, are
convinced that the nanoscale heat transfer community is ready to move forward along with
industrial partners to fabricate the next generation of devices with unprecedentedly high
thermal performances. In particular, NanoHeat is expected to have a strong impact on the following
technological fields: thermoelectricity, thermophotovoltaics, thermotronics, energy harvesting,
electronic cooling, phononic crystals, and biological heating (see Fig. 2).

In the short term, the cross-cutting collaboration among researchers working in nanoscale heat
transfer will be an instrument to structure, integrate, and improve under a common architecture the
wide variety of theoretical and experimental scientific tools for the fabrication, thermal modelling, and
thermal characterization of nanomaterials and nanostructured materials. For instance, improvements
in nanofabrication can produce materials with unconventional thermal properties, whose values can be
modelled theoretically and measured experimentally under the framework of NanoHeat, which will
thus create a productive working environment with a strong potential for novel applications. This united
task force will hence allow us providing better and faster solutions to tailor the thermal properties of
nanomaterials and understanding the fundamental mechanisms governing the nanoscale heat
transfer. In particular, this synergy can have a significant impact on the development of the

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next technological revolution represented by the Internet of Things, which will require
autonomous sensors/actuators powered by energy harvesting devices based on
thermoelectrics, thermophotovoltaics, etc.

Phononic
crystal sensors
Photovoltaic Thermal diode
electricity and transistor

Thermo Energy
electricity harvesting

Electronic Biological
cooling heating
Innovative
applications

NanoHeat

Figure 2: Potential innovations to be developed within the NanoHeat COST Action.

In the long term, NanoHeat will open new avenues for the technological development of novel
devices exploiting the unique thermal performances of a new generation of nanomaterials and
nanostructured materials (2D materials, nanofilms, phononic crystals, nanowires, nanotubes,
superlattices, polymers, nanofluids). For instance, the development of new types of
thermophotovoltaic cells with an efficiency higher than 24% (current state-of-the-art value) requires the
fine understanding of the coupling between light and exciton vibrations in nanostructured materials,
and could provide an effective solution to the ever-increasing need of energy. Based on these
potential technologies, the overall impact of NanoHeat will cover not only the scientific and
technical understanding of the fundamentals of nanoscale heat transfer, but also some of the
major societal needs on energy management, once transferred to the industrial domain. We
expect that the industry and society will be able to confront better the energetic challenges over the
next decades, through the development of innovative nanomaterials with tailored thermal properties,
under the framework of the NanoHeat Action. This materials innovation will support the fabrication of
new products with the potential to reduce environmental pollution, harvest energy, conserve
resources, and hence to improve our quality of life.

3.2 MEASURES TO MAXIMISE IMPACT

3.2.1 KNOWLEDGE CREATION, TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT

The innovative outcomes of NanoHeat rely on putting together techniques and knowledge from
different subfields of nanoscale heat transfer in order to facilitate the next technological breakthroughs.
Promoting frequent meetings and flexible networking of research communities, including different
backgrounds on fabrication, thermal modelling, and thermal characterization of novel nanomaterials,
will generate synergies leading to innovation breakthroughs. These synergies triggered by
NanoHeat will involve a technological program for developing advanced nanomaterials with
optimized thermal properties for integrating them into practical devices with record-breaking
gains in efficiency. For instance, recent works in thermoelectricity indicate that the nanoscale
structuring of materials with enhanced confinement of electrons and/or phonons, can effectively
improve their efficiency to convert heat into electricity. This unconventional approach has the potential
to increase the efficiency of the heat-to-electricity conversion from his current value of about 7% to
above 15% (ZT>2), which is high enough to displace the range of thermoelectric applications from a
small niche to a mass market scale. Being fully compatible with silicon mainstream technologies, the
to-be-developed thermoelectric technology will especially be suited for electronic devices, whose

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energy wasting is far beyond today’s harvesting capabilities. Similar sizeable scientific improvements
on thermophotovoltaics, electronic heat dissipation, thermophononic crystals, thermotronics, near-field
radiation, and biological heating will be achieved by bringing together theoreticians, experimentalists,
instrument scientists, and technology experts under the framework of NanoHeat (see Fig. 2). In
particular, those focused on technology development will be able to benefit from the wide scientific
developments in characterization and modelling as well as on fabrication advances. The NanoHeat
proposers will promote the application of their knowledge on nanoscale heat transfer through license
agreements and patents with existing companies and SMEs related to the automotive, aviation, rail,
space, building, and other industries.

The NanoHeat Action involves a unique European trans-disciplinary network of top-level senior
researchers that are internationally recognized with a long-standing experience on research and
supervision of PhD and Master students, as well as postdoctoral researchers. The ECIs and
researchers trained within the Action framework will therefore have the possibility to exploit suitable
research environments and facilities in different laboratories. NanoHeat will thus form the next
generation of researchers required to confront this era of rapid scientific and technological
developments. Furthermore, this Action will promote the gender balance and encourage the
participation of ECIs, by including the existing ones and inviting new ones to take part in all
NanoHeat working groups. ECIs will have the opportunity to contribute to all management levels of
the Action, especially as coordinators and WG leaders, to extend their knowledge through training
schools and STSMs and to present their results and views during meetings. This is expected to result
in the mutually beneficial collaboration of ECIs with experienced researchers, which will establish in-
depth cooperation with potential impact even beyond the timeframe of the NanoHeat COST Action.

3.2.2 PLAN FOR DISSEMINATION AND/OR EXPLOITATION AND DIALOGUE WITH THE
GENERAL PUBLIC OR POLICY

The dissemination plan of the Action aims at generating a wide visibility of the NanoHeat community
among academic and industrial players, as well as among the general public, which will altogether
create the required synergy for a viable technology transfer and exploitation plan. The main
dissemination actions are:

• Reporting the research activities to industrial enterprises and scientific policy organisations of
Europe, member states, and local regions as a mechanism for negotiating support for the
technological implementation of our research outcomes. This will be done preferable through
specific seminars held in the headquarters of these actors, which will also be invited to participate in
other Action events.
• The setup of a virtual research community through a website dedicated for “private” and
“public” networking. The private part, accessible to the network of proposers with a username and
password, will permit the internal dissemination of sensitive documents (i.e. presentations from
meetings, deliverables, internal presentations, recordings, reports from workshops, surveys of
facilities, etc.); while the public one will allow the external dissemination of information about the
NanoHeat Action, including its activities and outcomes, and will be linked with other relevant websites,
such as related COST actions and social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook
accounts of the NanoHeat Action), which have a large potential to attract new followers and
partners. The Action website will thus allow the dissemination of knowledge and information in a
timely and cost-efficient fashion to a wide audience. Twice a year, the users registered on the Action
website will receive by email an e-newsletter with information about the Action relevant activities and
related topics published by the research groups participating in the Action.
• The periodic organization of workshops, special sessions, and exhibitions co-located with
international congresses on nanoscale heat transfer. These key dissemination events will give us the
opportunity to present our results to the international community of researchers and industrials outside
the Action, which will provide a worldwide forum to exchange information and technical
experiences as well as to ensure a wide feedback on our scientific results and achievements.
• The publication of the scientific results and achievements obtained under the framework of the
NanoHeat Action, as articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings,
ensuring open access.
• The advertising of the Action outcomes by means of promotional paper materials, such as flyers,
leaflets, posters, and handouts on the research activities and Action events. All these means of
dissemination will carry the Action ad-hoc logo that will be chosen by the network of proposers.

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The combined impact of all these dissemination activities targeted at different stakeholders, will
allow us to identify, contact, and increase the number of industrial partners, in addition to the
three ones already participation in our Action, for exploiting the novel expertise and technologies
developed under the framework of the NanoHeat Action.

4 IMPLEMENTATION
4.1 COHERENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE WORK PLAN

4.1.1 DESCRIPTION OF WORKING GROUPS, TASKS AND ACTIVITIES

The NanoHeat Action objectives will be achieved by the synergies of three independently led but
complementary technical Working Groups (WGs) along with an additional one (WG4) dedicated to the
dissemination and outreach of the Action benefits and outcomes. The WG1 will synthetize and
fabricate the nanomaterial samples designed and modelled by the WG2 for their thermal
characterization by the WG3. This latter working group will involve the joint work of researchers and
industrial partners, which will be responsible for the development of potential applications.

• WG1: Synthesis and Fabrication (Milestones: M12 – M42)

Goals:
a) To design, synthetize, and fabricate nanomaterials and nanostructured materials with well-
established functionalities for developing the seven focused areas mentioned in subsection 1.1.1.
b) To compare the advantages and disadvantages of different nanofabrication technologies, such as
the nanoimprint lithography with and without reactive ion etching, self-assembly of block copolymers,
dry etching (already in use for fabricating processors as thin as 11 nm), focused ion beam-scanning
electron microscopy (FIB-SEM), pulsed laser deposition (PLD), stereo-lithography, 3D printing, etc.
This comparison will allow searching for cost-efficient up-scalable techniques.

Tasks:
a) Fabrication of the nanomaterial samples requested by the WG3 for their experimental thermal
characterization following the theoretical design recommendations of the WG2, which will take into
account the constraints of the fabrication and characterization techniques. Special attention will be
paid to the correlation of the expected and real thermal performances of the Action-made
nanomaterials in comparison with their possible commercially available counterparts.
b) Mapping of the different techniques of nanofabrication and nanostructuration available in multiple
disciplines for producing metallic, dielectric, semiconductor, ceramic, nanocomposite, nanofluid,
polymeric, and phase-change materials with tailored design and geometry. This will allow to identify,
apply, and optimize the full set of tools for fabricating nanomaterials and nanostructured materials for
multiple needs.
c) Fabrication, integration, and assessment of device prototypes by the industrial partners
participating in our COST Action. The joint fabrication expertise of many researchers participating in
the network of proposers of NanoHeat, will make of this COST Action a valuable pool of expertise on
the production of nanomaterials and nanostructures by applying different synthesis techniques.

• WG2: Theory and Modelling (Milestones: M12 – M42)

Goals:
a) To discover new thermal design laws for the conception of system-oriented applications involving
nanomaterials. This will also allow us predicting the expected thermal performances of the Action-
made nanomaterials when they are integrated into complex systems.
b) To model the different heat transfer mechanisms in nanomaterials (films, nanowires, superlattices,
nanostructures, etc.), such as the confinement and interface scattering of heat carriers.
c) To optimize the existing theoretical tools based on the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE),
Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, Landauer approach (LA), ab-initio calculations, fluctuation–
dissipation theorem (FDT), etc., for determining the thermal properties of nanomaterials.
d) To develop new modelling tools for taking into account the wave (coherent) and quantum effects of
the heat carriers in nanomaterials.

Tasks:
a) Development of the different methods (variational, iterative, momenta, etc.) to solve the BTE and
describe the heat transfer beyond the single-mode relaxation time and the local near-to-equilibrium
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approximations. With the help of the density functional perturbation theory (DFPT), it will be possible
to correctly characterize the harmonic and anharmonic properties, which are necessary for obtaining
the dispersions, group velocities, populations, relaxation times, and scattering rates of heat carriers.
These calculations will yield accurate and predictive values of the thermal conductivity of
nanomaterials along with a deep insight into the role of non-diffusive collective excitations within them.
The advantages and limitations of each method will comparatively be identified.
b) Calculation of the thermal conductivity of nanomaterials and nanostructured materials by means of
MD simulations, which directly provides the atomic trajectories through the integration of the Newton’s
equation of motion, under well-defined thermodynamic conditions. This numerical method is suitable
for describing the heat transfer in three-dimensional materials with sizes of few hundred nanometers
(i. e. a few millions of atoms), over several tens of nanoseconds. Given that the reliability of MD
simulations is driven by the interatomic empirical potentials, which may turn out to be inaccurate in
reproducing the heat carrier spectrum, WG2 will generate a database of them, considering their
conditions of application for a wide variety of nanomaterials. Furthermore, to overcome the limitations
of these interatomic potentials relying on an ab initio description of atomic interactions, first-principles
MD based on DFPT will also be used to determine the thermal conductivity. For the case of interfaces,
this latter method can pave the way to the theoretical determination of Kapitza thermal resistances.
The challenge of including quantum thermal effects in MD simulations will also be addressed.
c) Complementary to the BTE and MD, the LA with the phonon or electron Green’s function (GF) will
also be applied for describing the heat transfer in nanomaterials. This GF is usually used with
harmonic or anharmonic force constant matrices and allows the seamless incorporation of the Bose-
Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics for phonons/photons and electrons, respectively. This is the reason
why this formalism is particularly suitable to treat the ballistic transport in realistic nanomaterials (i.e.
with defects, substrates, contacts) at relatively low temperatures.

NanoHeat involves the participation of researchers with a wide expertise on the above-mentioned
(BTE, MD, DFPT, LA, and FDT) modeling tools and therefore it will represent a suitable framework for
the exchange of best practice, improvement of numerical codes with new functionalities adapted to
different nanomaterials, and benchmarking of new methods using real-world conditions. This
cooperative work will allow us learning a lot from the comparison of results obtained with various
methods, as they rely on different assumptions. In addition, the possible extension of the Fourier’s law
of heat conduction along with its application to nanomaterials will be explored, by contrasting its
predictions to available experimental data obtained in WG3 and/or reported in the literature.

• WG3: Experimental Characterization and Metrology (Milestones: M12 – M42)

Goals:
a) To measure the thermal, electronic, and phononic properties (thermal conductivity, thermal
conductance, heat capacity, interface thermal resistance, heat transfer coefficient, lifetime and mean
free path, etc.) of a wide variety of nanomaterials and devices through multidisciplinary techniques.
b) To experimentally determine the dispersion relation of phonons and electrons propagating in
nanomaterials and nanostructured materials.
c) To observe and quantify the non-diffusive behavior of the heat carriers through the temperature
and heat flux profiles measured for both the classical and quantum regimes.
d) To identify measurements suitable for eventually contributing to metrology standards.
e) To develop experimental techniques for performing the thermal characterization of nanomaterials.

Tasks:
a) Measurement of the thermal conductivity k, thermal conductance G, interface thermal resistance R,
acoustic dispersion relation, phonon lifetime, and mean free path distributions for different
nanomaterials through the continuous improvement of the experimental standard techniques 3ω, time-
and frequency-domain thermoreflectance, transient thermal grating, scanning thermal microscopy,
Brillouin and Raman spectroscopy, and asynchronous optical sampling (ASOPS), which altogether
have demonstrated to be accurate and reliable for determining these physical properties. The spectral
(frequency dependence) thermal conductivity will also be measured by means of the frequency-
domain thermoreflectance, which is especially suitable to probe buried interfaces and layers.
b) Application of the recently developed laser Raman thermometry to measure not only the thermal
conductivity of thin films, but also to map temperature fields with nanometer resolution in a contactless
fashion. This promising technique does not require the use of a metal layer transducer deposited on
the considered nanomaterial, as is the case of the 3ω technique, and therefore it could yield
measurements even more accurate than those of this latter method.

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c) Determination of the thermal diffusivity (a) and heat capacity (C=k/a) of nanomaterials by means of
infrared radiometry and photoacoustics. The experimental setups of these widely used spectroscopic
techniques will be adapted for different types of nanomaterials and the required theoretical models for
fitting a and C will be developed by WG2. The results obtained for C through these two techniques will
be complemented and compared with those measured by calorimetry.

Based on the wide experimental expertise of the researchers participating in the network of proposers
of NanoHeat, this COST Action will have a strong human potential for performing the thermal and
phononic characterization of a wide variety of nanomaterials and look for evidence of non-diffusive
thermal transport, by means of all the above-mentioned techniques. The measurement of microscopic
properties such as the mean free path, lifetime, and dispersion relations of phonons and electrons is
still nowadays an experimental challenge that will also be addressed by the WG3 by using its join
multidisciplinary know-how and networking. The experimental results found in WG3 and confirmed by
WG2 at the nanomaterial and device levels, will extend the state-of-the-art knowledge on their thermal
performances and represent the cornerstone for proposing new applications.

• WG4: Dissemination and Outreach (Milestones: M12 – M42)

Goals:
a) To create and consolidate a strong European consortium able to interact with research groups,
industrial stakeholders, and consortiums out of Europe under favourable conditions and better terms
than the ones hold nowadays by individual research teams.
b) To manage the internal and external public relations of the NanoHeat COST Action.
c) To search out conference participations and international funding opportunities, such as HORIZON
2020/2030 open calls, bilateral agreements between countries, etc.
d) To promote the gender balance improvement in our nanoscale heat transfer research community.
e) To share job opportunities for early-carrier investigators.

Tasks:
a) Presentation of the NanoHeat Action as a whole at international conferences about nanoscale heat
transfer, aiming at establishing contacts with research laboratories and enterprises to win over new
community members, international experts, and stakeholders (i.e. Industry, European materials
research society, and Horizon 2020/2030 and FP9 expert groups on nanotechnologies, advanced
materials, and advanced manufacturing and processing).
b) Development and maintenance of the Action website as well as the collection of information from
the scientific WGs (WG1, WG2, and WG3) to produce dissemination materials.
c) Promotion of women and ECIs for the organization and participation in scientific events.

4.1.2 DESCRIPTION OF DELIVERABLES AND TIMEFRAME

In order to ensure the achievement of the proposed objectives, NanoHeat will yield the following major
deliverables:
Deliverables of WG1: (i) Reports about the Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) of researchers in
WG1 to laboratories involved in WG1, WG2, and WG3, in order to exchange knowledge on the
material fabrication procedures and fabrication needs as well as to establish valuable synergies
among chemists, physicists and material researchers, as sketched in Fig. 3. (ii) 2 annual reports on
the competences in the synthesis and fabrication of nanomaterials and nanostructured materials. (iii)
Production of material samples designed by WG2 and supplied to WG3 for their thermal
characterization and exploitation in technological applications. (iv) Joint publications in scientific
journals of the synthesis and fabrication of a wide variety of nanomaterials.
Deliverables of WG2: (i) Reports about the STSMs of researchers in WG2 to laboratories involved in
WG1, WG2, and WG3, in order to correlate various theoretical models and results with the fabrication
feasibility, experimental findings, and problems, as depicted in Fig. 3. (ii) 2 annual reports on the
competences and advances about the theory and modelling of the thermal properties of
nanomaterials. (iii) Assessment and refinement of models taking into consideration the results from
WG1 and WG3. (iv) Joint publications in scientific journals of the most important theoretical findings
and conceptions of devices.
Deliverables of WG3: (i) Reports about the STSMs of researchers in WG3 to laboratories
participating in WG1, WG2, and WG3, in order to compare experimental and theoretical results
obtained by different techniques and models, as sketched in Fig. 3. (ii) Evaluation and optimization of
the different techniques for measuring thermal properties of nanomaterials. iii) Joint publications in

13
scientific journals and 2 annual reports on the most important experimental results for the thermal
properties of various nanomaterials.
Deliverables of WG4: (i) Reports from each Action event (e-meetings, in-person meetings,
conferences, training schools, etc.) for providing feedback (electronically) to the scientific WGs and
ensuring the proper public dissemination of scientific progress via press releases on major advances.
(ii) Organization of the Action workshops, training schools, and conferences covering all research
activities involved in the WGs and across their borders, where and when relevant.

WG2
Theory and Modelling

Technological
Applications

Optimized materials for WG3

WG1 functioning
Experimental
Synthesis and Fabrication
Tests feedback to improve Characterization
the fabrication

WG4: Dissemination and Outreach

Figure 3: Interactions between the different working groups.

Outputs of the three scientific WGs will be implemented in the seven key NanoHeat areas, as follows:
• Heat management at nanoscale: Customization of the thermal properties of nanostructured
materials and thermal interface nanomaterials applied in thermal circuits, sensors, and heat
dissipation from electronic devices.
• Thermoelectricity: Development of nanomaterials with ultra-low thermal conductivity and high
thermoelectric figure of merit ZT>2.
• Thermophotovoltaics: Development of devices that maximize the conversion efficiency of
thermal radiation power into electricity.
• Thermotronics: Developments of thermal diodes and thermal transistors for rectifying and
amplifying heat currents.
• Near-Field Radiation: Enhancement of radiative heat fluxes exchanged by two of more materials
separated by nanometric distances, for small-scale energy harvesting and other applications.
• Functional Thermal Materials: Development and characterization of optothermal, thermoelastic,
magnetocaloric, colloidal, and phase change materials for data storage, active cooling, single
molecule electronics, etc.
• Biological materials: Control of conductive heat fluxes through nanofluids (nanoparticles
embedded in a fluid), graphene, and other 2D materials (nanoparticle hybrid systems) with bio-
applications involving biosensing, bioimaging, photothermal therapies, drug/gene delivery, etc.

Given that new research topics of a certain critical size may appear during the course of the Action,
the organisation of the above-described focused areas may change with time, for adjusting to specific
needs identified by the Action and keeping its open and flexible nature of collaboration.

4.1.3 RISK ANALYSIS AND CONTINGENCY PLANS

As is the case of most large-scale projects, one of the main risks for the development of the NanoHeat
COST Action is that its partners are unable to fulfill their duties. NanoHeat has already addressed this
challenge by involving its participants as much as possible in the preparation of the Action proposal,
thus ensuring their commitment to its implementation. Additionally, the consortium is sufficiently
balanced for other partners to take over any duties that can no longer be carried out by the partner
they were originally assigned to. Other risks along with the corresponding contingency plans to tackle
them are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: Risk-Contingency Plan
Risk Contingency plan
A lack of coordination between
The Management Committee (MC) and WG leaders will monitor and
interdependent activities may
coordinate activities, supervise work progress, and make
cause delays in the Action
adjustments, if necessary.
implementation.

14
Sharing of modelling tools and WG2 will identify the modelling tools and experimental data
experimental results is difficult available and encourage their common utilisations through the
and limited. Action website, even if they come from different disciplines.
Research teams progress slower
To organize regular e-meetings and workshops for explaining and
than expected due to their
improving the competencies and knowledge of each research team.
different backgrounds.
The MC and WG leaders will provide information and facilitate the
Interaction among the WGs is access to infrastructures and exploitation of knowledge to all Action
limited due to the lack of partners. For instance, this will be done through the creation and
information and coordination. publication of a list of accessible experimental and theoretical
techniques within the NanoHeat Action to properly motivate STMS.
Research team’s contributions To reduce the number of WGs and/or tasks where a given research
are under the expectations. team is involved.
Insufficient impact due to fast MC will monitor the evolution of new research trends and eventually
evolution of the NanoHeat integrate their representatives into the Action, according to the
research areas. research needs.
MC will identify the potential collaboration of the new members to
Weak integration of new research
the different WGs and will involve them in the organization of
groups jointing the Action.
meetings.
NanoHeat will be open and flexible enough to incorporate new participants and address unforeseen
risks and activities that may appear during its implementation. The participating researchers will focus
on the industrial exploitation of their extensive knowledge and expertise made available by the
financial support of past, current, and near-future national and European research projects.

4.1.4 GANTT DIAGRAM

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

Timetable of Activities
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
MC meetings

WGs meetings

Workshops

Conferences

Training Schools

CGs e-meetings

Short term missions

Website update

WG reports

Management structures and procedures

The NanoHeat Action will be driven and overseen by a MC, chaired by a Chair and a Vice-Chair, who
will be elected during the first MC meeting. The WG leaders and coordinators responsible for the
short-term scientific missions (STSMs), ECIs, gender balance (GB), training schools, and outreach will
also be selected in this MC meeting. The election of all these members of the management structures
along with the assigning of their responsibilities will be done by following the COST rules and targeting
a gender balance. To ensure a rapid, efficient, and flexible coordination of the Action, the MC will
appoint a Core Group (CG) composed of the MC Chair and Vice Chair, the WG leaders, and the
coordinators for STSM, ECI, GB, and outreach. The CG will hold “e-meetings” (skype-like sessions)
every two months to discuss the administrative tasks and scientific progress, and will be in charge of:
i) reviewing the WG composition, taking into account the GB and the participation of ECIs along with
researchers of different backgrounds. ii) Proposing to the MC new Action members, MC observers,
and external experts to be invited for the training schools and Action workshops. iii) Setting up the
agenda for STSMs, in coordination with the STSM coordinator. iv) Controlling the compliance of the
Action work plan and reporting each year to the MC about the performed activities.
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