ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

We shall develop a microfluidic and microsystems toolbox allowing the construction and study of complex cellular assemblies (“tissue or organ mimics on chip”), in a highly controlled and parallelized way. This platform will allow the selection of specific cells from one or several populations, their deterministic positioning and/or connection relative to each other, yielding functional assemblies with a degree of complexity, determinism and physiological realism unavailable to current in vitro systems We shall in particular develop “semi-3D” architectures, reproducing the local 3D arrangement of tissues, but presenting at mesoscale a planar and periodic arrangement facilitating high resolution stimulation and recording. This will provide biologists and clinicians with new experimental models able to bridge the gap between current in vitro systems, in which cells can be observed in parallel at high resolution, but lack the highly ordered architecture present in living systems, and in vivo models, in which observation and stimulation means are more limited. This development will follow a functional approach, and gather competences and concepts from micr-nano-systems, surface science, hydrodynamics, soft matter and biology. We shall validate it on three specific applications, the sorting and study of circulating tumour cells for understanding metastases, the creation of “miniguts”, artificial intestinal tissue, for applications in developmental biology and cancerogenesis, and the in vitro construction of active and connected neuron arrays, for studying the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer, and signal processing by neuron networks. This platform will also open new routes for drug testing, replacing animal models and reducing the health and economic risk of clinical tests, developmental biology , stem cells research. and regenerative medicine.

2 260 000 €

Start date: 2013-07-01, End date: 2018-06-30

"Frontier research in statistical mechanics and soft condensed matter focuses on systems of ever-increasing complexity. Among these are systems where microscopic dynamics are not controlled by thermal fluctuations, either because the sources of the fluctuations have not a thermal origin, or because “microscopic” sources of fluctuations are altogether absent. Practical applications comprise everyday products such as paints or foodstuff which are soft solids composed of dense suspensions of particles that are too large for thermal fluctuations to play any role. Non-Brownian “active” matter, obtained when particles internally produce motion, represents another growing field with applications in biophysics and soft matter. Because these systems all evolve far from equilibrium, there exists no general framework to tackle these problems theoretically from a fundamental perspective. I will develop a radically new approach to lay the foundations of a detailed theoretical understanding of the physics of a broad but coherent class of materials evolving far from equilibrium. To go beyond phenomenology, I will carry theoretical research to elucidate the physics of particle systems that are simultaneously Dense, Disordered, Driven and Dissipative—D4PARTICLES. By combining numerical analysis of model systems to fully microscopic statistical mechanics analysis, my overall aim is to discover the general principles governing the physics of athermal particle systems far from equilibrium and to reach a complete theoretical understanding and obtain predictive tools regarding the phase behavior, structure and dynamics of D4PARTICLES. Reaching a new level of theoretical understanding of a broad range of materials will impact fundamental research by opening up statistical physics to a whole new class of complex systems and should foster experimental activity towards design and quantitative characterization of large class of disordered solids and soft materials."

1 339 800 €

Start date: 2012-10-01, End date: 2017-09-30

"A Nano-OptoMechanical System (NOMS) is an ideal interface between nanomechanical motion and photons. The merits of such a system depend crucially on the level of optical/mechanical coupling. For sufficient coupling, the nanomechanical motion is efficiently imprinted on photons and read-out with the assets of optical detection: broadband, fast, ultra sensitive (ultimately quantum limited). Moreover, in a NOMS, the very dynamics of the motion (its frequency, damping, noise spectrum) can be controlled by optical forces. This opens novel roads for nanomechanical sensing experiments, both classical or quantum, that need now to be experimentally investigated and brought in compliance with future on-chip applications. This project relies on Gallium-Arsenide (GaAs) disk optomechanical resonators, where photons are stored in high quality factor optical whispering gallery cavities and interact with high frequency (GHz) nanomechanical modes. We have recently shown that these resonators possess a record level of optomechanical coupling and are compatible with on-chip optical integration. The first aim of the project is to investigate in depth the mechanisms leading to optical and mechanical dissipation in GaAs nanoresonators, and obtain GaAs NOMS with ultra-low dissipation. The second aim is to realize prototype nano-optomechanical force measurements with a GaAs disk resonator set in optomechanical self-oscillation, to establish the potential of this novel approach for sensing. This will be done both under vacuum and in a liquid. The behavior of two NOMS integrated on the same chip will also be studied, as first archetype of parallel architectures. A third aim is to operate GaAs NOMS at their quantum limit, using cryogenics, optomechanical cooling and novel concepts where an active optical material like a Quantum dot or Quantum well is inserted in the GaAs NOMS to enhance optomechanical interactions. Transfer of quantum states within a QD-NOMS coupled system will be explored."

1 495 800 €

Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2018-01-31

"The project will explore many-body physics in emergent quantum Hall effect systems (graphitic layers and surface states of topological insulators) and in layered metals of transition metal dichalcogenides using magneto-optical spectroscopy - unconventional for this purpose, but uniquely applicable to these unconventional systems. Studying the inter Landau level excitations (with Raman scattering techniques) in graphene and its bilayer we will test the basic principles of the role of electron-electron interactions in the regime of the quantum Hall effect. Employing high sensitivity microwave absorption methods, we will attempt to solve one of the most controversial issues in the physics of graphene: the nature of the low temperature ground state of the graphene bilayer. The magneto-optical response (in the far-infrared range) of three dimensional topological insulators will be investigated with the aim of demonstrating a new (half odd-integer) quantum Hall effect of their surface states and possible new exotic ground states of single-cone Dirac fermions. Finally, with a fresh experimental approach (cyclotron resonance absorption on NbSe2 and TaS2 and their thin layers) we will shed new light on one of the most intriguing phenomena in strongly correlated systems: competition between an insulating behaviour (charge density wave state in our case) and the ideal-conductor, superconductivity phase."

1 934 041 €

Start date: 2013-03-01, End date: 2018-02-28