FoQAL, a project by Dr. Darrick Chang, ICREA Professor at ICFO (a BIST centre), has been highlighted as one of most promising photonics projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
In 2009 Photonics was named by the European Commission as one of five European key enabling technologies due to its potential to offer innovations across a wide range of fields, including medicine, energy conversion and conservation, lighting and high-quality manufacturing, and information, among others. In light of the potential for photonics to shape the future, The European Commission invested 700 million euros in research and innovation in photonics through the Horizon 2020 programme. The European Research Council (ERC), the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research has awarded 37 grants to ICFO researchers since its founding in 2009 for projects in which photonics plays a decisive role.
CORDIS, the Community Research and Development Information Service of the European Commission, has recently published a Results Pack of ten of the most promising photonics projects funded by the ERC. Among these is FoQAL, a project carried out by ICREA Professor at ICFO Dr. Darrick Chang in his ERC Starting Grant in which he produced nanophotonic interfaces that promise to reveal quantum phenomena between light and atoms never witnessed before.
The projects featured in this Results Pack are just a few examples of how photonics can change technology and affect our daily lives. Photonics is expected to create exciting new opportunities in the future, exceeding the limits of what can be achieved through conventional technologies.
More information can be found on the ICFO website.