While silicon-based solar cell technologies dominate the photovoltaic (PV) market today, their performance is limited. Indeed, the world record efficiency for Si-based PVs has been static at 25% for several years now. III-V multijunction PVs, on the other hand, have recently attained efficiencies > 40% and new record performances emerge regularly. Although tandem PV geometries have been developed combining crystalline and amorphous silicon, it has not been possible so far to form devices with efficiencies to rival III-V multijunctions. NOVAGAINS aims to benefit from combining the maturity of the Si technology with the potential efficiency gains associated with IIIV PV through the development of a novel tandem PV involving the integration of an InGaN based junction on a monocrystalline Si junction by means of a compliant ZnO interfacial template layer which doubles as a tunnel junction. Although the (In)GaN alloy has been used extensively in LEDs, its’ use in solar cell technology has drawn relatively little attention. Nevertheless, the InGaN materials system offers a huge potential to develop superior efficiency PV devices. The primary advantage of InGaN is the direct-band gap, which can be tuned to cover a range from 0.7 eV to 3.4 eV. As such, this is the only system which encompasses as much of the solar spectrum. Indeed, the fact that InGaN can provide such tunability of the bandgap means that PV conversion efficiencies greater than 50% can be anticipated. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to grow GaN based films of high materials quality directly on Si because they do not have a good crystallographic match. ZnO can be grown more readily on such substrates, however, because of its’ more compliant nature. Indeed, well-crystallized and highly-oriented ZnO can even be grown directly on the native amorphous SiO2 layer. Since ZnO shares the same wurtzite structure as GaN and there is less than 2% lattice mismatch it has been demonstrated that it is then possible to grow InGaN/GaN epitaxially on ZnO/Si using the specialized know-how offered by the consortium. Modeling indicates that when optimized, stacked InGaN and Si cells coupled by tunneling through a ZnO interlayer offer the perspective of tandem cells with overall solar conversion efficiencies in excess of 30%.

Depredation by toothed whales of Patagonian toothfish on demersal longline and tuna and swordfish on pelagic longlines is a growing problem internationally and the main problem exposed the French longline fisheries operated from Reunion Island. Pelagic and demersal longline fishery operated from Réunion Island is the first French fishery in terms of economic value and the second merchant economic sector of Réunion Island (100 M d'€/yr). These fisheries are highly affected by this depredation with an estimated financial loss of € 65 million over the 2003-2013 period. The observed depredation levels raise both economic and conservation issues. Indeed the artificial supply of food helps in creating an imbalance between these populations of cetaceans and their natural resources. Longlining is one of the fishing methods with the lowest environmental effect. The objectives of OrcaDepred are firstly to better understand the depredation behaviour of and ecology of cetacean species involved to offer fishing companies operational and technological solutions to depredation. Technological approaches tested to this day, namely the use of pots, acoustic repellents are ineffective. Under the OrcaDepred four Work Packages (WP) will be implemented to study and solve the depredation issue. - WP1 aims at better understanding the natural feeding and interaction behaviours with the fishery cetaceans interacting with the lines, and in the case of pelagic longlines identify the cetacean species involves. For this two dimensions tracking movements (tracks and dives) of these cetaceans will be studied using i) a new generation of satellite tags processing on-board the pressure and acceleration data and ii) by passive acoustic monitoring using hydrophones deployed along pelagic longline or a dedicated acoustic vertical array to the demersal fishery. The interactions of cetaceans with the lines will be studied using an experimental line on which the hooks are equipped with accelerometers to assess when fish are caught and depredated. - WP2 is devoted to assessments of the bio-economic consequences of depredation through an ecological economic for sustainable management of these fisheries taking into-account depredation. Finally, ecosystem modelling based on trophic links between species will be carried out to assess the ecological consequences of fishing-depredation at the ecosystem level. - WP3 will consider whether changes in levels of interaction between cetaceans and ships are related to fishing practice differences between captains and/or vessel characteristics, with a special focus on acoustic noise generated. These analyses are essential to guide the fishing companies in their strategic choices: training their fishing captains and/or conducting technical changes on their vessels. - WP4 will implement a technological approach to remove depredation. In partnership with industry, new prototypes of fish protection devices on the lines and not harmful to cetaceans and possibly limiting the levels of accessory catch such as skate on demersal long line will be tested and operational systems will be patented. OrcaDepred federates the complete French scientific community currently involved in addressing the longline depredation issue. Other fisheries at both national and international levels should benefit directly from the OrcaDepred as this problem is expending worldwide. Orcadepred outcomes will lead to mitigation solutions and should generate a strong national and international audience.

Often considered as detrimental, defects in semiconductors such as vacancies or impurities can reduce drastically the performances of optoelectronic devices. Defects can also be functionalized to provide new properties to semiconductors. Layered 2D materials known for their exceptional properties such as ability to form Van der Waals heterostructure, or bandgap tuning by changing the number of layers, are also gaining interest due to the properties of their defects. More precisely, also linked to defect centers, persistent photoconductivity (PPC), a phenomenon in which photo-induced conductivity persists after turning off the illumination, has been observed to last for days at room temperature in some 2D materials. IRL GT-CNRS recently evidenced for the first time that 2D h-BN exhibits significant PPC at room temperature for many years after sub bandgap UV illumination clearly indicating that after UV exposure, h-BN can be durably converted from insulator to conductor. These new observations could path the way toward h-BN usage for optoelectronics and especially deep UV emission. BIRD project’s goals are thus to: • Reveal the underlying mechanism of insulator to conductor transition in 2D layered h-BN after deep UV illumination. The exact reason for giant PPC in h-BN is indeed still unknown hindering the development of the photoinduced doping effect. As such, identification of the defects responsible for PPC will be a fundamental input to favor their formation during metal organic chemical vapor deposition growth. • Optimize the giant PPC effect and effectively use it as a novel doping method. Understanding the physics behind the giant PPC effect in h-BN is a first requirement for that. • Demonstrate its proper usage we aim toward the realization of h-BN homojunctions using the photoinduced doping process to produce conductive h-BN layers. Integrating BAlN/BN quantum wells would then be the next step toward highly efficient DUV LEDs

This proposal addresses the two major roadblocks in the development of graphene for high-performance nano-optoelectronics, namely how to efficiently and reliably integrate them in pristine conditions in electronic devices, and how harness the exceptional properties of graphene. Specifically, proof of principle of ultra-thin body tunnel field effect transistors (UB-TFET) are proposed consisting of two-dimensional (2D) all epitaxial graphene/boron nitride heterostructures with a viable large scale integration scheme. Tunnel transistors are an efficient alternative to standard field effect transistors designs that are inefficient for graphene because of the lack of a bandgap. Importantly UB-TFET should overcome the thermal limitation of thermioic sub-threshold swing in common transistors. The TFET will be based on epitaxial graphene on SiC (epigraphene, or EG)/BN structures; the most advanced implementation will utilize the recently discovered exceptional conductance properties of epigraphene nano-ribbons that are quantized single channel ballistic conductors at room temperature. But having excellent graphene is far from having a device and the active component has to be integrated. This project is based on the fundamental realization that only (hetero)-epitaxial growth can provide the required atomic control for reliable devices. Epitaxial growth insures clean interfaces and precise orientation of the stacked layers, avoiding trapped molecules and the randomness inherent to layer transfer. However, despite this absolute requirement, very little progress has been made up to now to grow large 2D dielectric on graphene; most dielectric deposition needs chemical modification of the graphene surface for adhesion, which invariably compromises the graphene electronic performance. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) layers is considered the best substrate for graphene, but only micron size BN flakes are available, making the integration tedious, unreliable and impossible at large scale. In this proposal we will grow h-BN epitaxialy on epigraphene by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). As demonstrated in preliminary work by this three-team partnership, this technique provides exceptional unmatched graphene/h-BN epitaxial interfaces as required for high performance electronics, and immediate upscaling capabilities. The SiC/EG/h-BN heterostructure will give access to graphene properties in an exceptionally reproducible and clean environment, not otherwise available. Growth conditions will be investigated to produce ultra thin h-BN on epigraphene, which have not been achieved yet. This proposal will then follow two tracks to build UB-TFETs, demonstrating proof of principle of vertical and lateral BN/EG-based FETs. Our ultimate goal is to combine ballistic epigraphene nanoribbons in tunneling devices to enable a new generation of electronic devices. This is an extremely promising alternative to the standard FET paradigm that can enable ultra-high frequency operation as well as low power operation. This project is a tight well-focused partnership between three teams with a history of highly successful collaboration and perfect complementarity: CNRS-Institut Néel (Grenoble), CNRS/ONERA-Laboratoire d’Etude des Matériaux (Châtillon), and CNRS/Georgia Institute of Technology -UMI 2958 (Metz, in collaboration with GT Atlanta). We will build up on the important milestone of epitaxial h-BN growth on EG, towards critical development including ultra-thin BN and fabrication of tunnel transistors devices. IN will be in charge of providing epigraphene, will design and realized transistor devices and perform transport measurements; the UMI team will produce the BN epitaxial film and provide basic structural study for rapid optimization of the growth process; LEM will perform advanced structural and optical studies, in particular HR-TEM studies, critical to the layer characterization of ultra thin 2D films.

NP-Hard combinatorial optimization problems suffer from an exponential growth in complexity with problem size. They are frequently encountered in many engineering fields, such as planning and scheduling in manufacturing, wire-length optimization, layout, and design partitioning in microelectronic/VLSI design. AATLAS proposes an innovative approach to solve NP-hard problems, bringing together complementary expertise from three partners: IRL 2958 GeorgiaTech-CNRS (GT-CNRS), CentraleSupélec (CS), and Institut Jean Lamour (IJL). The objective is to develop an energy-efficient, reconfigurable, scalable, and integrated optimization solver based on hybrid analog/digital field programmable arrays. The proposed architecture will combine: (i) fully analog computing cores, based on field-programmable analog array (FPAA) platforms, with (ii) pre- and post-processing layers implemented on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). AATLAS will reach this objective by implementing three work packages: 1) Combine FPAA and FPGA platforms in an energy-efficient hybrid architecture (IJL), 2) Develop Ising/Hopfield machine based on this architecture (GT-CNRS), 3) Apply Ising/Hopfield machines to large-scale NP-hard problems (CS). Contrary to other computing engines based on physical systems, the FPAA core, while being analog, benefits from the same advantages as its digital counterpart (i.e. FPGA), namely integration, analog reconfigurability, and continuous-valued inter-connection weighting. The hybrid analog-digital system implemented in AATLAS will demonstrate the promises of reconfigurable analog computing for solving large-scale NP-hard problems using physics-inspired energy relaxation techniques.