Harry Heinzelmann - Vice President Nanotechnology & Life, CSEM, Switzerland

Innovation in Nanotechnology at the Swiss Center of Electronics and Microtechnology CSEM

CSEM, Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology), is a private research and development centre, which has specialised in microtechnology and nanotechnology, communication technologies, and systems engineering. It offers to its customers and industry partners tailor-made innovative solutions, which are based on its technological expertise from in-house applied research programs. In founding start-ups, it further contributes to developing Switzerland as an industrial location. A total of 22 such new enterprises have been launched by CSEM since 2000.

In this presentation, CSEM and its mode of operation will be described and some of its R&D efforts will be highlighted. Special emphasis will be given to the area of Nanotechnology, in particular in the area of microfabricated nanotools and nanostructuring by self-assembly methods. This work is motivated by the consensus that as advanced lithography methods become increasingly cost intensive, concerns are growing with respect to the sustainability of Moore's law. Much hope has been put into nanotechnology to extend current technology roadmaps, both in feature size and flexibility regarding materials and working environment. The complementary strategies in nanotechnology are usually referred to as 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches. Numerous applications outside the field of microelectronics show the broad usefulness of this horizontal technology.

Harry Heinzelmann holds university degrees from University of Basel and was on postdoc assignments at IBM Almaden and Zurich Research Laboratories. At present he is at the CSEM Centre Suisse d'Electronique de Microtechnique SA, a privately held innovation center, as Vice President and Head of Nanotechnology and Life Sciences.

Current activities include MEMS tools for the nanometer scale, nanostructuring, nano-biotechnology and biosensing, and nanoscale optics. His general interest is in the application of nanotechnology in today's innovation process, as well as in its societal issues.

He is currently Secretary of the Nanotechnology Section of the Swiss Society of Optics and Microscopy SSOM, and member of the Advisory Board of NanoDimension, a provider of early-stage venture capital support to the nanotechnology industry.

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