Project description
Reaching the limits of infrared spectroscopy technology
The exploration of biological systems, their phenotypes, and evolutionary processes centres on understanding the crucial molecular compositions that mirror these phenomena. However, studying these intricate biological samples requires precise non-destructive probing, a challenge often faced by current technology. The ERC-funded LIVE project seeks to further develop infrared (IR) spectroscopy, offering significantly improved sensitivity, speed, and accuracy. Leveraging femtosecond lasers and nonlinear optics, LIVE aims to push IR spectroscopy to its fundamental limits. In addition to developing powerful, highly stable sources of waveform-controlled few-cycle IR pulses, and the technologies to detect the broadband spectroscopic response of biological samples to those, the project will break ground towards new applications thereof in medicine, such as high-throughput IR flow cytometry and multivariate breath analysis.
Objective
A biological system’s phenotype and the evolution thereof are mirrored in molecular composition. The complexity of biological samples, however, renders quantitative, multivariate molecular probing challenging, in particular for non-destructive, label-free approaches. Vibrational spectroscopies capture signals from all molecular bonds exchanging energy with an optical excitation, delivering highly-specific optical fingerprints of samples in their native state, to which virtually all molecules contribute. Yet, while infrared (IR) spectroscopies profit from large vibrational cross-sections, technical limitations of IR radiation sources and detection have so far limited their applicability to real-world biomedical settings, in particular in the context of highly absorbing water (ubiquitous in biological samples). The project LIVE aims at harnessing the unparalleled control over light, on the level of individual optical-field oscillations, afforded by femtosecond lasers and nonlinear optics, to overcome current technological limitations and advance IR spectroscopy toward the fundamental limits set by the nature of light and, thus, toward the ultimate sensitivity, specificity and throughput achievable in optical vibrational fingerprinting. To this end, we envisage the development of powerful sources of fewcycle pulses covering the entire IR molecular fingerprint region (500–4000 cm-1) with utmost electric-field waveform stability, and of innovative electric-field sampling techniques capturing nearly all photons emitted by linearly and nonlinearly excited molecular vibrations. The host institution permits immediate validation of these developments for real-world biomedical samples, including, high-throughput vibrational fingerprinting of individual cells in flow cytometry, spectral tissue histopathology and high-resolution, high-sensitivity breath gas monitoring. Thus, LIVE promises direct impact on patients’ health, deeply rooted in basic photonics research.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences optics laser physics
- natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany
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