The idea of global, low earth orbit satellite constellations delivering high data rate free-space communication from and to any point in the world is reaching maturity. Projects by SpaceX, OneWeb, Facebook and Google are only a few examples of many initiatives which have recently been publicised. Key to the success of such deployments is the...
We propose a new type of optimised and highly sensitive beta-imaging camera with active background rejection POSICS for radio-guided surgery (RGS) and potentially for many other applications. The RGS technique is used to help surgeons to locate precisely tumours, and minimise the surgical invasiveness thus improving patient life quality after the intervention. Currently, the beta-emitting...
The VISIR technology will create a new class of solid-state imagers by monolithically integrating an innovative double diode structure, based on a GaAs/Ge heterostructure, with a CMOS readout/imaging circuit. This combination will be capable of imaging over the spectral range from 400 to 1600 nm, covering the visible (VIS) and most of the short wavelengths...
Detection of ultraviolet (UV) light with high single-photon efficiency is required in many fields, from dark matter experiments to astronomical surveys, and even air pollution monitoring. Traditional detection techniques are based on the use of photo-multiplier tubes, which have typical single-photon efficiency of 20-25% for wavelengths λ < 300 nm, and are susceptible to thermal...
Fluorescence lifetime (FL) measurements are used to provide information on the molecular makeup of a sample. They can be used in a very wide range of applications, such as imaging of cell structures, tracking of antibodies and DNA sequencing in biology, detection of cancer cells in medicine and quality control in pharmacy. Typical techniques for...
The H2I2 proposal aims at designing an innovative integrated imaging system that could disrupt the field of particle therapy by providing a lightweight, cost effective, and highly performant solution to the major challenges in precise delivery of the dose to the patient. Particle therapy is an advanced form of radiation therapy, which uses beams of...
Natural gas (i.e. methane) is a key resource for the energy and fuel market of the next two decades. Above all, methane as a fossil fuel has a lower carbon footprint than coal and oil, so it is going to play a fundamental role in the transition to renewables. Furthermore, it can be easily replaced with biomethane....
Safe environmental conditions and environmental monitoring have great importance in our life. The early detection of dangerous events, such as earthquakes, large-scale fires, appearing of poisoning or flammable gases, water and soil pollutions are critical to prevent oncoming cataclysms. Here we propose an integrated smart device that can be part of a network, capable to detect any...
One of the processes that are mostly exploited in particle detection is scintillation, whereby light in transparent media (organic or inorganic materials, including salts, gases, and liquids) is emitted following the absorption of ionising radiation. Scintillation is the result of a spontaneous decay, with relatively slow fluorescence decay time and isotropic emission. In this project...
The goal of this project is to develop an innovative detector – called GEMTEQ – for microdosimetry. Microdosimetry is the study of the temporal and spatial distributions of absorbed energy in biological matter and is crucial for the understanding of the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of radiation on human tissue, for example of a carbon ion beam...
X-ray tomography is an incredibly useful diagnostic tool in various sectors of medicine. However, the typical radiation dose the patient absorbs during a ct scan is quite high, so that less informative tools must be often used instead. A drastic reduction of the radiation dose would open x-ray tomography to vast new applications, e.g. preventive...
The vision PRIMELOC envisions a future where location-based services, enabled outdoor by Galileo or GPS, will be widely provided also in indoor spaces, thanks to the availability of automatically generated maps and infrastructure-less localisation inside buildings. In this project, we devise the new concept of personal radar as a fundamental step toward this goal. This concept stems...
The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is unique in its atomic resolution. The objective of the research is to develop an STM technique that will provide an NMR signal for each atom that the STM observe. This is possible using the hyperfine coupling between an electron which will be injected into the molecule and the nearby...
Silicon based single photon avalanche diodes (SPAD) are already a valuable technological solution to detect and accurately measure photons. Arranged in in extended arrays as Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM), they can provide both single-photon counting sensitivity and fast responsivity in large-area detectors. However, some of their promising applications (LiDAR and 3D-ranging imaging at 850÷950 nm wavelengths, spectroscopy with red and...
We aim to develop multilayer structures that alternate dielectric and metallic layers with nanoscale thickness for extremely high resolution imaging and optical sensing. Such structures constitute hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) that can act as super-lenses with a spatial resolution of some tens of nanometers, thus well below the diffraction limit. The layered geometry and fabrication, that...
Microalgae biomass has a strong potential as alternative, 3rd generation non crop-based biofuel. Biofuel production from microalgal biomass also directly tackles the paramount problem of climate change: fuel produced from carbon fixation from atmosphere drastically cuts the CO2 footprint of energy production. The efforts to face scarcity of resources and climate change is even more important in the...
The SPHINX project aims building an ultrafast X-ray holographic camera able to record images of microscopic samples and of their internal parts with nanometer resolution. The proposal is based on a new implementation of the phase-contrast holography, that overcomes the main limitations encountered in the current systems (mostly based on absorption-contrast), namely the low energy...
In the electromagnetic spectrum just between the microwaves that we use in our WiFi and Bluetooth devices and the infrared light there is a mostly unexplored region, named the TeraHertz (THz) gap, consisting of electromagnetic (EM) waves with frequencies comprised between 0.1 to 10THz, which is waiting to be exploited. THz radiation may have amazing technological applications. These...
IMAGO project has the ambitious objective to develop nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a resolution down to the micron scale. Considering that currently, the resolution of clinical MRI is about 1mm while the intrinsic resolution of molecular diffusion MRI (DMRI) is about 10-20 micrometres, the technology proposed to represent a clear advance on the state of the...
Radiation in the 1GHz-10THz range has attracted growing attention in the last 20 years from both a basic science and an application points of view. On the one hand, several studies in modern science, such as Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), Axion-Like Particles (ALPs), arrangement of proteins and electron/hole/phonon dynamics, show distinctive signals in this frequency...
