Final Report Summary - MITEPHO (MIcrowave and TErahertz PHOtonics) MIcrowave and TErahertz PHOtonics (MITEPHO) is an European Commission (EC) FP7 founded Marie Curie ITN coordinated by Prof. Horacio Lamela at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. This four year project commenced on 01/01/2010 and completed on 30/12/2013. It is a partnership of 8 beneficiaries which consists of Universidad de Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), Universität Duisburg-Essen (Germany), Universität Kassel (Germany), University College London (UK), Université de Savoie (France), Center for Physical Sciences and Technology (Lithuania), Institut d’Electronique de Microelectronique et de Nanotechnologie (France) and THALES (France). In addition, there are 3 associated industrial partners such as EKSPLA (Lithuania), Teravil (Lithuania) and Sunrise valley technology transfer center (Lithuania). The kick off meeting of ITN MITEPHO took place in March 2010 in Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. This helped to establish the network plan and to finalize the research programme. All the researchers hired were distributed among the 8 core beneficiaries of the network. In terms of gender balance, about 17% of the ESRs were females. More details can be found in the project website at:http://portal.uc3m.es/portal/page/portal/grupos_investigacion/optoelectronics/european_projects/mitephoMITEPHO has successfully generated and studied microwave and THz waves. It is important to note that the research under MITEPHO is not limited to the generation of microwave and terahertz (THz) signals but also deals with modeling and characterization aiming at various application fields. All partners have worked together to provide world class training to a category of 18 ESRs and 1 ER, most of them carrying out their PhDs in their host institutions and others obtaining highly qualified research experiences. According to the proposed platform, all the advisers have cooperated in an inter and intra institutional levels for the successful training of each researchers. Every researcher has visited another institution different from their host institutions, as a part of secondments which complimented their research work, qualitatively and quantitatively. In addition to this, other important components were summer schools, winter schools, industrial workshops and complementary skills training. Keeping in mind, the importance of wide range collaborations, many scientists from outside the ITN network were invited to present some of their researches in relation to MITEPHO. All the ESRs have presented their works at the ITN meetings organized by different partners through talks/ poster presentations. The industrial workshops gave an opportunity for all the researchers to have an open interaction and discussion with different industries. This further helped the ESRs to have a wider idea of what exactly the industry needs from the young researchers. The ESRs have successfully presented their works at different scientific conferences in the form of posters and talks. Two of the ESRs have been awarded two “Best Student Paper” prizes at international IEEE conferences. Also, many of the works have been published in peer reviewed international journals. One of the works of a group of ESRs was invited for a featured article in IET electronics letter journal while another was published in optical society newsroom.MITEPHO has helped the partners to train the ESRs in their specific fields. Many of the systems developed under MITEPHO find direct applications in various fields, such as in high data rate sub-THz wireless communication domain, radar domain etc. The success of development of these systems can be seen from the interest shown by several SMEs, in the fabricated photomixers and antennas. Other studies like the control of the polarization of THz beams generated by optical means find direct application in laboratories. Opto-microwave signal processing, are at the front edge of researches in technology, especially for high bit rate optical telecoms or for testing high frequency microelectronics, and also for addressing RF signals, for example in the radar industry. The devices and opto-electrical RF methods proposed and studied during the MITEPHO project open the road towards highly reliable signal processing at higher frequencies, largely exceeding the 100-GHz bandwidth. These new optoelectronic components, systems and methods are clearly indicated as major targets in the new European Research roadmap, like Horizons 2020. CNT and Graphene films show amazing electrical properties. Therefore, they will certainly be used to design and fabricate new electronic components, especially based on quantum effects thanks to the 2D nanometric scale of the films. The details of the developed systems and results of studies carried out under MITEPHO have reached the scientific community and others through national and international conferences, workshops, articles, newsrooms and journal publications. One of the partners has applied for a Lithuanian patent on developed devices (High speed photodetectors, patent application LTU 2013 077, from 2013-07-22). It is also planned to apply for an international patent on the same topic in collaboration with other SME. The partners in MITEPHO are also being involved with other national and international projects with an aim of extending the achievements obtained under this project. In conclusion, the MITEPHO project has achieved results for various technology and applications, allowing us to reach the following conclusions about social and economic impacts:º The developed microwave and THz detectors and sources, offer advantages such as small wavelength, high bandwidth, ability to penetrate dielectrics in some areas over optical free-space communications.º The developed THz and microwave passive and active components based on advanced technologies can be applied in telecom and understanding of material physics.º New cost effective systems in the areas of telecommunication and electromagnetic sensing for nano-engineering, imaging, security, biomedical and defence applications have been explored.º It can be seen that in product development, potential pre-production problems can be identified, resolving questions unanswered by optical and infrared techniques, which saves time and money. º Non destructive material characterization of carbon nanotubes and graphene. These components are expected to address the high frequency regime over 100 GHz, and thus the telecom market. It is anticipated that such components will be low-cost, compact, and could be included in integrated photonic systems. Therefore the conclusions are positive in the social, industrial, and scientific level.
