ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

The aim of the project is to develop chemical processing systems based on the principle of swarm robotics. The inspiration for swarm robotics comes from the behaviour of collective organisms – such as bees or ants – that can perform complex tasks by the combined actions of a large number of relatively simple, identical agents. The main scientific challenge of the project will be the design and synthesis of chemical swarm robots (“chobots”), which we envisage as internally structured particulate entities in the 10-100 µm size range that can move in their environment, selectively exchange molecules with their surrounding in response to a local change in temperature or concentration, chemically process those molecules and either accumulate or release the product. Such chemically active autonomous entities can be viewed as very simple pre-biotic life forms, although without the ability to self-replicate or evolve. In the course of the project, the following topics will be explored in detail: (i) the synthesis of suitable shells for chemically active swarm robots, both soft (with a flexible membrane) and hard (porous solid shells); (ii) the mechanisms of molecular transport into and out of such shells and means of its active control; (iii) chemical reaction kinetics in spatially complex compartmental structures within the shells; (iv) collective behaviour of chemical swarm robots and their response to external stimuli. The project will be carried out by a multi-disciplinary team of enthusiastic young researchers and the concepts and technologies developed in course of the project, as well as the advancements in the fundamental understanding of the behaviour of “chemical robots” and their functional sub-systems, will open up new opportunities in diverse areas including next-generation distributed chemical processing, synthesis and delivery of personalised medicines, recovery of valuable chemicals from dilute resources, environmental clean-up, and others.

1 644 000 €

Start date: 2008-06-01, End date: 2013-05-31

Sounds carry a large amount of information about our everyday environment and physical events that take place in it. For example, when a car is passing by, one can perceive the approximate size and speed of the car. Sound can easily and unobtrusively be captured e.g. by mobile phones and transmitted further – for example, tens of hours of audio is uploaded to the internet every minute e.g. in the form of YouTube videos. However, today's technology is not able to recognize individual sound sources in realistic soundscapes, where multiple sounds are present, often simultaneously, and distorted by the environment. The ground-breaking objective of EVERYSOUND is to develop computational methods which will automatically provide high-level descriptions of environmental sounds in realistic everyday soundscapes such as street, park, home, etc. This requires developing several novel methods, including joint source separation and robust pattern classification algorithms to reliably recognize multiple overlapping sounds, and a hierarchical multilayer taxonomy to accurately categorize everyday sounds. The methods are based on the applicant's internationally recognized and awarded expertise on source separation and robust pattern recognition in speech and music processing, which will allow now tackling the new and challenging research area of everyday sound recognition. The results of EVERYSOUND will enable searching for multimedia based on its audio content, which is not possible with today's technology. It will allow mobile devices, robots, and intelligent monitoring systems to recognize activities in their environments using acoustic information. Producing automatically descriptions of vast quantities of audio will give new tools for geographical, social, cultural, and biological studies to analyze sounds related to human, animal, and natural activity in urban and rural areas, as well as multimedia in social networks.

1 500 000 €

Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2020-04-30

Inverse problems research concentrates on the mathematical theory and practical interpretation of indirect measurements. Applications are found in virtually every research field involving scientific, medical, or industrial imaging and mathematical modelling. Familiar examples include X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Inverse problems methods make it possible to employ important advances in modern mathematics in a vast number of application areas. Also, applications inspire new questions that are both mathematically deep and have a close connection to other sciences. This has made inverse problems research one of the most important and topical fields of modern applied mathematics. The research team proposes to study fundamental mathematical questions in the theory of inverse problems. Particular emphasis will be placed on questions involving the interplay of mathematical analysis, partial differential equations, and Riemannian geometry. A major topic in the research programme is the famous inverse conductivity problem due to Calderón forming the basis of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), an imaging modality proposed for early breast cancer detection and nondestructive testing of industrial parts. The geometric version of the Calderón problem is among the outstanding unsolved questions in the field. The research team will attack this and other aspects of the problem field, partly based on substantial recent progress due to the PI and collaborators. The team will also work on integral geometry questions arising in Travel Time Tomography in seismic imaging and in differential geometry, building on the solution of the tensor tomography conjecture in two dimensions obtained by the PI and collaborators in 2011. The research will focus on fundamental theoretical issues, but the motivation comes from practical applications and thus there is potential for breakthroughs that may lead to important advances in medical and seismic imaging.

1 041 240 €

Start date: 2012-12-01, End date: 2017-11-30

The global lighting market consumes 20 % of total electric power generated, producing an enormous 400 million metric tons of CO2 annually. The need for more efficient light sources has driven the blossoming of light-emitting diode (LED) research and technology. However, inorganic LEDs for solid-state lighting contain rare earth and toxic heavy metal traces that have negative environmental impacts. Recently, organic LEDs (OLEDs) have been introduced as promising general lighting sources. Unlike LEDs, OLEDs can be fabricated using energy-efficient processes and ecological materials. Therefore, the hazards of LEDs can be addressed by shifting to OLED lighting. Currently, the best OLED lamps are limited to 50 lm/W and lifetimes of around 5000 hours. To convince the market to embrace OLED for general lighting, white OLEDs (WOLEDs) need to reach the luminous efficacy and luminance of inorganic white LEDs (100 lm/W, 10000 hours lifespan). In the PLAS-OLED project, to address this need, I propose the fabrication of a novel WOLED architecture. The new idea here is the conversion of monochromatic OLEDs into WOLEDs with polariton modes. Polariton modes are exciton-dressed degenerate states, meaning that polaritons can be utilized to convert a single-color emitting exciton (e.g., green color) to multi-color emission (e.g., blue and red). Moreover, polaritons states have been reported to accelerate emission rates in organic semiconductors, and to induce reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) for harvesting non-radiative triplet excitons or converting slow phosphorescence to fast fluorescence. Thus, polaritons can also increase the luminous efficacy and luminance of WOLEDs. By conducting comprehensive photoluminescence and electroluminescence experiments, I aim to demonstrate that polaritonics is a disruptive technology for converting monochromatic OLED into inexpensive, efficient, stable, and bright WOLEDs.

1 499 707 €

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