Chirality is a fundamental property of life, making chiral sensing and analysis crucial to numerous scientific subfields of biology, chemistry, and medicine, and to the pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, and food industries, constituting a market of 10s of billion €, and growing. Despite the tremendous importance of chiral sensing, its application remains very limited, as chiroptical signals are typically very weak, preventing important biological and medical applications. Recently, the project-coordinating FORTH team has introduced a new form of Chiral-Cavity-based Polarimetry (CCP) for chiral sensing, which has three groundbreaking advantages compared to commercial instruments: (a) The chiroptical signals are enhanced by the number of cavity passes (typically ~1000); (b) otherwise limiting birefringent backgrounds are suppressed; (c) rapid signal reversals give absolute polarimetry measurements, not requiring sample removal for a null-sample measurement. Together, these advantages allow improvement in chiral detection sensitivity by 3-6 orders of magnitude (depending on instrument complexity and price). ULTRACHIRAL aims to revolutionize existing applications of chiral sensing, but also to instigate important new domains which require sensitivities beyond current limits, including: (1) measuring protein structure in-situ, in solution, at surfaces, and within cells and membranes, thus realizing the “holy-grail” of proteomics; (2) coupling to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for chiral identification of the components of complex mixtures, creating new standards for the pharmaceutical and chemical analysis industries; (3) chiral analysis of human bodily fluids as a diagnostic tool in medicine; (4) measurement of single-molecule chirality, by adapting CCP to microresonators, which have already demonstrated single-molecule detection; and (5) real-time chiral monitoring of terpene emissions from individual trees and forests, as a probe of forest ecology.

A Prototype of a game-changing laser-based method for processing optical fibre connectors for high-speed, low-cost termination of optical fibres will be developed within this project. The 2X annual growth of the internet and rise of ultrahigh definition video means fibre optics is taking over from electrical cables as the only viable method of moving data even short distances, whether that is between the millions of servers and switches in a data centre or between high-definition video equipment and the television. This is creating a demand for 10 billion fibre optic cables, all of which need the ends of the optical fibre to be terminated with an optical quality and consistent finish. The dominant optical fibre termination technology used by industry today involves manually polishing the fibre end using low cost labour. This produces inconsistent results and is not compatible with automation or with the step-up in volume required. OpTek have previously developed and patented a method of laser processing fibres that is used in high-precision low-volume niche applications that can tolerate high cost. Additionally, OpTek has internally developed the capability to achieve the required quality in a lower-cost platform as part of a Proof-of-Concept project. The present project translates this platform into a Prototype machine to match the target prices demanded in these high-volume applications. This will be based on the innovative laser and optical arrangements developed in the previous Proof-of-Concept stage, matched to the actual optical performance criteria required of the optical fibre terminations. The Prototype will be suitable for manufacture in the UK, providing a way for OpTek and the UK to participate and benefit from the once in a lifetime opportunity driven by the shift form copper to fibre which would otherwise only be appropriate to low-cost-base geographies.

In the ASPIRE project, whose academic and industrial beneficiaries are world leading in their complementary fields of expertise, the overarching research goal is the measurement of photoelectron angular distributions (PADs) in the “molecular frame” (MF) of systems of biological relevance. These MF-PADs can be interpreted as electron diffraction patterns, achieved by “illuminating the molecule from within”, and enable the shapes and motions of individual molecules to be interrogated. Such knowledge is needed for the development of new medicines (the shapes of drug molecules dictate their function) and new materials (efficient solar cells can be constructed if energy dissipation processes in molecules are understood). Progress in this area is highly technologically driven, requiring high repetition rate, short wavelength light sources and fast detectors. The input of private sector beneficiaries is therefore critical to the scientific objectives, as well as to the enhanced training environment. Work packages on advanced light source and detector developments will feed into the overall goal through secondments, regular virtual meetings and face-to-face network meetings. The symbiosis of the developments that will take place in ASPIRE will create a research and training environment that is world-leading and optimally tailored to capitalise, for example, on the investment that has been made in the European XFEL facility. The ESRs will be trained in world-leading laboratories and will benefit from the exchange of best practice among beneficiaries and partners, and from unique training events. ASPIRE will therefore ensure that European research remains competitive in the global market, and that the trained researchers will be uniquely well-placed to contribute to the development of novel instrumentation in the future.

DIsposAble MOnitor for Needle Dislodgement (Venous Needle Dislodgement Sensor) Project DIAMOND is an 18 month collaborative development project involving UK based OpTek Systems and Sweden’s Redsense Medical, supported by Eurostars. The challenge is to develop a reliable sensor for VND with a sufficiently low cost-of-use to allow it to be employed in significant fraction of the 270m blood dialysis procedures carried out annually. Venal Needle Dislodgement (VND) occurs where the needle returning blood from a dialysis machine to the patient becomes dislodged, leading to a potentially fatal loss of blood. More than 2 people per week die as a result in the US alone, and an order of magnitude more are seriously injured. The DIAMOND partners want to develop a novel single-use and reliable VND sensor with a low enough cost to allow widespread use; with an automated EU-based supply chain; offering the potential to save over 1,000 lives per year.