ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

How could networks of innovative cities contribute to the solution of humanity’s existential problems? Given the on-going digital revolution and our present-day sustainability challenges, we have to reinvent the way cities are operated. We propose that the requirement of organizing cities in a more resilient way implies the need for more decentralized solutions, based on digitally assisted self-organization, and that this concept is also compatible with sustainability requirements and stronger democratic participation. The CoCi proposal will investigate, whether such a decentralized, participatory approach could compete with a fully centralized approach in terms of efficiency and sustainability, or perform even better than that. This requires in particular to figure out, how distributed co-creation processes can be coordinated and lifted to a professional level in a scalable way. The main questions of the CoCi proposal are: How could more participatory smart cities work, and how can they meet the requirements of being more efficient, sustainable and resilient? What are their risks and benefits compared with centralized approaches? How could digital societies fitting our culture, for example, based on values such as freedom, equality and solidarity (liberté, égalité, fraternité) look like, and what performance can be expected from them? The CoCi proposal brings together two research directions: first, the automation of mobility solutions based on the Internet of Things and Machine Learning approaches, as they have been pursued within the “smart cities” paradigm and, second, novel collaborative approaches as they have been recently discussed under labels such as participatory resilience, digital democracy, City Olympics, open source urbanism, and the “socio-ecological finance system”.

2 499 500 €

Start date: 2020-10-01, End date: 2025-09-30

The quest for mechanical oscillators with ultralow dissipation is motivated by classical and quantum sensing and technology, and precision measurements. For decades, the most coherent mechanical oscillators were acoustic vibrations in kg-scale crystalline bars. Recently a paradigm shift has occurred. The combination of elastic strain engineering – a technique used in microelectronics – with phononic mode engineering has resulted in 1D nano-strings with a mechanical quality factor Q of 0.8 billion – the highest ever achieved at room temperature. Remarkably, these new techniques have major untapped potential, as they have only been applied to non-crystalline materials in 1D. We propose a new generation of strain-engineered crystalline and superconducting mechanical oscillators whose Q-factors are predicted to exceed 100 billion in up to 2 dimensions. We will seek to reach this theoretical limit, probe new dissipation mechanisms, and utilize these oscillators for quantum optomechanics in new regimes and achieve room temperature ground state cooling and ponderomotive squeezing. Likewise, we will apply these techniques to create highly coherent superconducting electromechanical devices at milli-Kelvin temperatures, enabling quantum-enhanced force sensing and 1 second decoherence times. Secondly, we will explore a fundamentally new method for measurement and manipulation of microwave fields with optical fields – the nascent field of circuit Cavity-Electro-Optics (cCEO). First recognized over a decade ago, it is possible with optical fields to cool, amplify or interferometrically read out microwaves. Yet to date this regime has remained in accessible due to insufficient coupling strength between the microwave and optical fields. We will overcome this challenge based on a new circuit architecture, allowing laser cooling and laser amplification of microwaves and electro-optical masing using optical backaction, and thereby opening an entirely new way to manipulate microwaves.

2 496 000 €

Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30

The ability toThe ability to readily access small-molecule building blocks at will has important consequences for the discovery and development of novel medicines and materials. It is particularly beneficial when the chemical methods are convenient while at the same time economically and environmentally tenable and sustainable. We are especially interested in catalytic processes that are easily executed and utilize readily available starting materials to produce optically active products with high regio, chemo, diastereo, and enantioselectivity. The proposal aims to discover, develop, and study a collection of enantioselective olefin functionalization reactions that provide access to useful building blocks, such as amines, azides, hydrazines, nitriles, alcohols, involving acyclic, cyclic and bicyclic structures. The catalyst will be derived from earth abundant metals, such as Fe, Mn, and Co and incorporate novel chiral ligands. The study includes the design and preparation of two structural classes of novel, chiral boric acids that are expected to serve as catalyst for the enantioselective functionalization of unsaturated carboxylic acids and boronic acids. The methods are expected to substantially impact the development of novel strategies for complex molecule synthesis. In this regard, we propose to use the catalysts form this study to convert dienes and trienes into polyols with characteristic stereochemical and oxidation patterns found in bioactive agents, including pharma- and nutraceuticals (carnitine). Such advances enable new approaches that go beyond the well-established methods such as aldol/allylation for the preparation of stereochemically complex fragments. Catalysts will also be developed that convert acyclic olefinic alcohols and amines into optically active, saturated furans, pyrans, pyrrolidines, and piperidines. The implementation of the various catalytic methods in complex settings enables efficient, convergent routes to bioactive agents.

2 498 635 €

Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31

"Structural colour reflected by photonic materials is typically attributed to highly ordered nanostructures with periodicities on the 100-nm length scale. When investigating structural colour in animals and plants, it is however becoming increasingly evident that brilliant photonic colour can also arise from seemingly disordered morphologies. This is surprising as uncontrolled disorder in photonic materials usually severely degrades their colour response. While some recent theories exist, the emergence of structural colour from disordered morphologies is fundamentally not understood. It is clear however that these disordered morphologies must possess ""hidden correlations"", which enable the formation of a photonic band gap. This project will uncover the design rules that underlie disordered photonic morphologies, thereby contributing to the fundamental understanding of photonic materials. The project has a strong nature-inspired component, but will go beyond the examination of natural photonic materials. WP1 and WP2 will examine 3D and 2D disordered photonic morphologies in animals and plants, respectively. The structural analysis of these materials will uncover hidden correlations in seemingly random morphologies. WP2 and WP3 will manufacture materials that implement these correlations to recreate the optical signatures of the biological model organisms. This will test the statistical analysis of WP1 and WP2 and shed light on the \textit{in vivo} synthesis of the disordered photonic morphologies. WP4 ties WP1-WP3 together by performing optical experiments and computer simulations. By analysing both the far- and near-field results of the simulations and comparing them with the structural correlations and optical experiments, the four WPs will not only provide a fundamental understanding of the interplay of structural correlations with optical interference in disordered materials, it will also establish design rules allowing their facile manufacture."

2 499 990 €

Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31