Project description
Making terahertz spectroscopy more accessible for industries
Terahertz technology has immense potential across many fields, including engineering, chemistry, medicine and quantum communications. However, current systems for terahertz spectroscopy are bulky and expensive and demonstrate limited performance. Dual-comb spectrometers (DCSs) offer a promising alternative because they demonstrate high signal-to-noise ratios, precision and spectral resolution and are stable. Yet, they need to be further developed to become compact and accessible for industrial use. The ERC-funded CLEAR project will advance miniaturised frequency comb and harmonic frequency comb quantum cascade lasers to create a portable, low-cost DCS. The proposed system will deliver exceptional precision, stability and spectral coverage without complex moving parts.
Objective
‘Clear’ aims to increase the technology readiness level of the state-of-the-art miniaturized frequency comb (FC) and harmonic frequency comb (HFC) quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), operating at terahertz (THz) frequencies, devised under the ERC Consolidator grant ‘SPRINT’, and develop a portable dual-comb sensing/imaging demonstrator apt to the translation of this technology to industrial end-users.
The project aims to provide a compact, low-cost, small in production volume, size, weight and power consumption, dual-comb spectrometer (DCS) which provides short-term precision and long-term stability, superb signal-to-noise ratios, large spectral resolution, mW optical power/mode, and >1.3THz spectral coverage, employing the not-invasive broadband THz-frequency light of metrological FC sources without the need of neither complex moving parts nor gratings to separate optical frequencies and spread the optical spectrum.
Both optical paths can easily be implemented on photonic chips, significantly reducing the design complexity and with excellent compensation for external perturbations, ensuring fast acquisition rates. The envisioned DCS performance far exceeds those of commercial time-domain or asynchronous optical sampling spectroscopy systems.
Key objectives are: i) developing a compact, portable and accessible THz DCS; ii) validating its core technology with commercial end-users and at exhibitions; iii) evaluating opportunities by identifying new end-user applications, with a systematic market, IPR and regulatory compliance study. By the end of this programme, I plan to identify a solid exploitation route by directly collaborating with THz instrument producers and with targeted commercial end-users.
Seeking new exploitation opportunities, ‘Clear’ prospects new directions and long-term impacts on many interdisciplinary fields crossing engineering, chemistry, biology, medicine, cultural heritage, quantum and optical communications.
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.
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Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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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.
Funding Scheme
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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.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-POC
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00185 Roma
Italy
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