physics – Politecnico di Milano – Progress in Research

SAFe-nSCAN: more accurate analysis for cancer treatment

Posted on 13/02/202427/02/2024 by admin

Visualising how molecules interact within their three-dimensional environment is essential in cell and tissue screening procedures used in therapies for cancer treatment. However, most current imaging technologies of this type lack spatial resolution and quantitative molecular profiling capabilities. Moreover, there is no single quantitative tissue imaging instrument today that can perform analysis on several complementary scales, from tissue to molecule, with high levels of speed, throughput and accuracy.

To overcome these limitations, the European nanoSCAN project was set up, coordinated by the French CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), of which Politecnico di Milano is a member via its Department of Physics. The five project partners are developing the innovative SAFe-nSCAN imaging platform, which will combine multi-scale optical microscopy solutions: from structured illumination microscopy for rapid inspection and classification of cells and tissues to single-molecule localisation microscopy techniques for more accurate 3D nanoscopic investigations of pre-selected regions.

The goal is to develop the first platform capable of providing imaging at all scales, from tissue to sub-molecule, via a single machine.

The nanoSCAN project is funded by the EU (European Innovation Council) with EUR 2.49 million.

The project website

A new chapter for nonlinear optics

Posted on 19/09/202222/09/2022 by admin

A new bidimensional semiconductor shows the highest nonlinear optical efficiency over nanometer thicknesses. This is the result of a new study recently published in Nature Photonics by Xinyi Xu, PhD student of Columbia University, and Chiara Trovatello, postdoctoral research scientist at the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano, together with Prof. Giulio Cerullo from the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano, Dmitri N. Basov and P. James Schuck from the Columbia University.

Optical fibers, bar code readers, light scalpels for precision surgery… the innumerable applications which have revolutionized our daily life rely exclusively on one tool: the laser. Each laser, however, emits light only at one specific wavelength and in order to generate new colors one can make use of specific crystals exploiting nonlinear optical processes. The miniaturization trend, which has dominated the world of electronics, enabling the realization of powerful consumer devices, such as smartphones and tablets, is now moving the world of lasers and their applications, which constitute the so-called field of photonics. For this reason, it is necessary to realize nonlinear processes inside thinner and thinner crystals.
Chiara Trovatello, author of the study

The typical nonlinear crystal thickness is on the order of a millimiter. In this study researchers have proven that a new nonlinear material – the 3R crystal phase of molybdenum disulfide – over a thickness of few hundreds of nanometers (1 nm = 10^-9 m) can achieve an unprecedent nonlinear optical gain. This study sets the ground for a new revolution in the field on nonlinear optics.

This new crystal opens innumerable future applications, which could be directly integrated on a micrometric optical chip, reducing the typical size of nonlinear optical devices. Among the most relevant applications: optical amplifiers, tunable lasers and quantum light generators over nanometer length scales.

On-chip nonlinear application will reinvent photonic devices through thinner and more compact designs.
Prof. Cerullo

Read the study

SOLUS: Multimodal Tomography is here

Posted on 16/12/202118/01/2022 by admin

The SOLUS Project, coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano, has come to a close with the creation of an innovative multimodal tomographic imaging system for improving breast cancer diagnosis.

The system, developed to discriminate noninvasively between malignant and benign lesions, is currently in the clinical validation phase at the San Raffaele Hospital. The validation will last two years, but initial results will be already available in the next months.

Breast cancer is the most common type of tumor and an early diagnosis is essential to giving women a higher a chance of survival. Screening programs are effective, but they have a high rate of false positives.

SOLUS – Smart Optical and Ultrasound Diagnostics for Breast Cancer – offers a solution to this problem, combining ultrasound imaging (ultrasound and elastography) and diffuse optical tomography in a single probe, thus making it possible to simultaneously evaluate the morphology, stiffness, and composition of the tissues and the blood parameters.

The development of the SOLUS imaging system required significant advancements in the field of photonics (picosecond pulsed laser, highly sensitive time domain detectors, dedicated acquisition electronics), also leading to the development of the “Smart Optode”, a key element of the multimodal imaging system that is, however, also available as an independent device for diffuse optical spectroscopy in the time domain, which combines very compact dimensions (few cm³) with state of the art features and has potential applications in the medical field and beyond: from monitoring of physical rehabilitation and athletic training activities, to the nondestructive evaluation of fruit in the field or timber.

The Horizon 2020 SOLUS project was coordinated by Professor Paola Taroni of the Politecnico di Milano’s Physics Department, and brings together 9 partners from 5 European countries, with expertise in the photonics, electronics, and medical imaging sectors: 2 universities (Politecnico di Milano and University College London), 1 research centre (CEA-LETI Grenoble), 4 companies (Vermon, Hologic Supersonic Imagine, Micro Photon Devices, iC-Haus), 1 hospital (San Raffaele Hospital), and EIBIR-European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research, which connects medical imaging societies at the European level.

The whole consortium is grateful to the European Commission and to the European Technology Platform Photonics21, which supported the project making its developments possible.

The SOLUS project is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731877.

For more information: http://www.solus-project.eu/

LIGHT-CAP: sustainable solutions for conversion and storage of solar energy

Posted on 15/10/202115/10/2021 by User User

Environmental sustainability is today a focal aspect of technological innovation and European research policies. The European Union is ready to achieve the ambitious objective of climate neutrality by 2050, and fundamental to this aim is the promotion of new solutions for energy, from renewable sources, such as solar energy, and with efficient effective energy consumption.

Politecnico di Milano is a partner in the LIGHT-CAP project, and as such it is pursuing the goal of bringing about radical change regarding methodologies used for conversion and storage of solar energy. Still today, these are based primarily on silicone solar panels and bulky batteries, kept separate in two different devices. LIGHT-CAP will introduce a new nanotechnology-based architecture able to combine the two functions of conversion and storage in a single versatile device.

LIGHT-CAP has obtained funding worth 3.18 million euros from the European Union and the consortium, coordinated by the IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, includes EU and non-EU partners with academic and industrial backgrounds, in order to also be able to produce the first prototypes at the end of the project. In Italy in addition to the IIT, it also sees the involvement of Politecnico di Milano and the IIT start-up, Bedimensional, active in the production of nanomaterials and their implementation in devices for energy applications..

The aim of the LIGHT-CAP project is to manufacture a device similar to a battery charged by light; exposed, for example, to sunlight, the device charges like a normal battery plugged into a power outlet. Again like a normal battery, the energy stored can be used to power portable apparatus. To do this today,it takes two devices, a photovoltaic cell and a battery. The project device will be able to do both things.

The mechanism at the base is the separation of positive and negative charges after light irradiation on interfacing between two nanomaterials, one made up of nanoparticles measuring just a few nanometres, the other as fine as one or a few atoms like graphene.

To do this, Politecnico di Milano will use ultrafast continuous spectroscopy techniques (up to a time resolution of just a few femtoseconds) to study the optical properties of manufactured nanomaterials. The fundamental interactions between the different types of nanomaterials in liquid-liquid, liquid-solid, and solid-solid interfaces will also be studied.. The experimental measurements will be corroborated by a variety of theoretical models.

Politecnico di Milano will coordinate the project’s second Work Package, which focuses on the optical characterisation, optoelectronic characterisation and electrical characterisation of the new nanomaterials and new interfaces and heterojunctions.

The researchers will be using eco-compatible, easy-to-source materials (such as many minerals in the earth’s crust), to avoid supply-related criticalities. The project’s innovative ideas were successful in the Horizon 2020 European call for proposals for “Breakthrough zero-emissions energy storage and conversion technologies for climate-neutrality” as part of the “FET Proactive: Emerging Paradigms and Communities” programme.

The LIGHT-CAP comprises: the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy), the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland), the Technische Universitaet Dresden (Germany), the Justus-Liebig-Universitaet Giessen (Germany), Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the Fundacion IMDEA Energia (Spain). The project also benefits from collaboration with a non-EU research group at the ‘Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, which will provide key competences in the synthesis and application of graphene-based nanomaterials. Further support will also come from the IIT start-up Be-Dimensional and from the company “Thales Research and Technology”.