NanoMat was founded in 1997 and has its managing office at the Institute of Nanotechnology at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. NanoMat covers twenty-nine industrial companies and research institutions. The networks overall aim is to bring science and applications together on nanoscale and nanostructured materials that enable novel or enhanced properties or functions. Hence, NanoMat covers major topics of interest such as energy storage systems, nanomagnetism, surface nanotechnology or health and safety aspects of nanotechnology. NanoMat was engaged in the German reseach intiative "NanoCare" which was devoted to health and safety issues combined with the use of nanoparticles in industry, and has been finished even successfully.
iL is supported by the Universities of Heidelberg and Mannheim, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and by the companies BASF SE, Merck KGaA, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG and SAP AG.
iL's goal is to create research platforms which allow the partners to work together under one roof across all disciplines and along the entire value chain. The company focuses mainly on cooperative research, transforming inventions into marketable products, and training the next generation. iL is initially working on the future technology of organic electronics, forming a central component of the strategy for success of the BMBF Leading-Edge Cluster Forum Organic Electronics. As part of the promotion of this excellence cluster, many research projects are being driven forward at InnovationLab GmbH, including the development of semi-transparent organic solar cells or organic sensors for medical applications.
Nanotechnology is considered one of the key technologies of the 21st century. Increasingly small structures are gaining technological and economic importance. The scope of applications ranges from car paints and catalysts to high-performance materials; from medical applications to data storage devices and micro- and nanoelectronics, to mention but a few examples.