Evolution in Nanomaterio: The NASCENCE Project

Abstract

This chapter describes some of the work carried out by members of the NASCENCE project, an FP7 project sponsored by the European Community. After some historical notes and background material, the chapter explains how nanoscale material systems have been configured to perform computational tasks by finding appropriate configuration signals using artificial evolution. Most of this exposition is centred around the work that has been carried out at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente using disordered networks of nanoparticles. The interested reader will also find many pointers to references that contain more details on work that has been carried out by other members of the NASCENCE consortium on composite materials based on single-walled carbon nanotubes.