Curved electronics: Geometry-induced effects at the nanoscale.

The growing demand for next-generation electronics providing a link between living matter and the digital world has favored the growth of highly adaptable electronic functional elements capable of recognizing environmental changes by responding to electrical, magnetic, optical and thermal stimuli. The exceptional mechanical properties of these electronic nanomembranes enable further modifications of their structures to yield three-dimensional shapes at the nanoscale and allow configurations that would be impossible to achieve with bulk materials. Such extension in the three-dimensional space provides the means to modify conventional or to launch entirely novel functionalities by tailoring geometric curvature and the three-dimensional shape. The exciting developments in the discovery and exploitation of these novel effects induced by curvature at the nanoscale allow ultimately to define a completely new field ---curved nanoelectronics. We here examine in details the origin of curvature effects at the nanoscale and illustrate their potential applications in innovative electronic, spintronic and superconducting devices.