PROMATECH – the Research Centre of Advanced Materials and Technologies – creates a realistic platform for the development of cooperation between the academia and industry in the field of applied material research that can significantly contribute to the enhancement of the overall competitiveness of the Slovak industry by supporting the implementation of new materials and technologies in production processes and products.
The strategic objective of the project is to build a national centre for the research of advanced materials and technologies for current and future applications, and through the coordination of the research activities of the academic institutions significantly increase the efficiency of research, and to create a modern infrastructure of equipment and staff with joint efforts, which would be sufficient enough to deal with any scientific problems. The aim is to also support the implementation of new materials and technologies in the production processes and products, and thus strengthen the competitiveness of the Slovak industry. The research centre will continuously figure as an integrated, interdisciplinary and sustainable centre, that generates scientific and research results with applicative and innovative potential that are rapidly applied in practice. The university aims to study nanoscale magnetic materials for new types of sensors and hybrid materials based on semiconductors and superconductors for the use in information technology.
The Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice cooperates within the project with the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) (the main coordinator of the project), with the Institute of Materials Research of the SAS, with the Institute of Experimental Physics of the SAS, with the Institute of Geotechnics of the SAS, with the Institute of Materials & Machine Mechanics of the SAS, and with the Technical University in Košice.
The new laboratories of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice that were built within the PROMATECH project include a Laboratory for the preparation of powdered and pressed samples (research on progressive soft magnetic materials and on their possible usage in electrotechnical applications), a Laboratory of magnetic features (research on unconventional magnetic materials from the class of low-dimensional magnets, molecule-based magnets and organic magnets), a Laboratory of scanning scope microscopy STM and AFM (research on the mechanical, tribological and electric features of materials with nanometric resolution, with high energy resolution in high vacuum, and with a possibility to prepare, characterise and manipulate with the samples in a closed a system), a Low-temperature nanotechnology laboratory of magnetic features of materials (research on the magnetic features of materials with nanometric resolution, and with high energy resolution in very low temperatures), a Nanotechnology laboratory for the preparation of nanocomponents for electronic devices, sensors, and environmental applications (research on the preparation of nanostructure and thin coatings by electroplating), a Common TEM laboratory for the preparation of samples (research on the correlation between the structure and physical features of amorphous metallic glasses and nanocrystalline metals prepared by primary crystallisation of amorphous metals), and a Low-temperature laboratory (research on the thermal, electric and magnetic features of materials in really low temperature, in high magnetic fields, and under extremely high pressure).
