In the last decade, the studies of nanomaterials such as thin films and engineered surfaces have attracted the interest of many industrial groups and studies have been focused on technological applications. The ability of controlling surface coatings at the nanoscale is of paramount importance for a large scale industrial development of nanotechnology. Highly sophisticated surface-related properties such as optical, magnetic, electronic and mechanical can be obtained via nanostructured coatings. Nanostructured materials and coatings offer the potential for significant improvements in engineering properties based on improvements in physical and mechanical properties resulting from reducing microstructural features by factors of 100 to 1000 times compared to current engineering materials. The potential benefits include higher hardness and strength in materials resulting from reduced grain size. The nanoscale is not just another step towards miniaturization, it is qualitatively new scale where materials properties depend on size and shape, as well as compositions, and differ significantly from the same properties in the bulk.
In this talk, I would present a systematic study of synthesis of these nanomaterials by Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) techniques such as sputtering and laser ablation and some of the recent applications, developed in our laboratories based on: Shape Memory Thin Film Heterostructures based Biosensor, Vibration Damping Device for Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Superhard Nanocomposite Coatings for tribological applications