The aim of kW-flexiburst is to develop a high-power Ultra-short Pulse (USP) laser generating bursts that can be arbitrarily adjusted in terms of burst repetition rate, intra-burst repetition rate, number of pulses per burst, relative intensities in the burst while maintaining 1 kW average power. This will be enabled by a radically new concept of seed oscillator, which offers the opportunity to work at GHz repetition rates.

This high power USP laser will be adaptable to efficiently process any material (metals, dielectrics, semiconductors) using a variety of laser parameters that can be continuously tuned from a few high energy pulses to a large number of pulses in a high repetition rate burst.

The flexible laser performance will be demonstrated in relevant industrial applications, which require high throughput/ high quality laser processing methods and therefore will benefit significantly from the high mean power and the tunable pulses provided by the kW-flexiburst system.

The selected applications span a wide range of industrial fields from micro-structuring of metals, ceramics and other dielectrics, drilling of hard substrates and cutting of transparent materials. Each of them carries the potential for significant or even disruptive improvements of the related industrial production process by employing the kW-flexiburst laser technology in combination with the beam delivery concepts and process methods proposed by the project.

Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) that mimic photosynthesis belong to the group of direct systems for converting sunlight to stored chemical energy. Common to those is the potential to become more efficient and cost effective because, unlike indirect ones, they do not involve unnecessary steps such as the sunlight to electricity conversion. Despite their greater potential, there is yet no direct conversion device that works on any technological scale. Indeed, there seems to be a large barrier linked to a poor PEC efficiency in absorbing sunlight and driving the catalysis for water oxidation (WO) and selective CO2 reduction (CO2R) to carbon-based compounds to store chemical energy. In addition, most PEC designs incorporate non-abundant or highly toxic elements precluding their future use at a larger scale.

In LICROX we will implement a new PEC type incorporating three complementary light absorbing elements driving WO and CO2R. The latter consists of a tandem assembly that combines Cu nanocatalysts with molecular catalysts made of only abundant elements. BiVO4 photoanodes have been fabricated and incorporated in tandem structures with organic photovoltaics (OPV) providing sufficient photovoltage and photocurrent to drive the bias free CO2R reaction to C2 products, targeting ethylene. Several light trapping mechanisms have been incorporated, which have been proven to be very effective in boosting the light harvesting efficiency in thin film solar cells.

To accelerate the endeavor of converting the triple junction PEC proposed into a working technology for transforming light and CO2 into compounds capable of storing chemical energy, LICROX brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists with a comprehensive expertise in materials chemistry, semiconductor physics, electrochemistry, and photonics from EPFL, TUM, ICIQ and ICFO. Designing a strategy by DBT to overcome societal resistance, LICROX will set the route for a new scalable renewable energy technology to be initially pushed towards an industrial implementation and commercialization by AVA, HST and a newly developed spin-off from ICFO.

In this talk, the overall LICROX project will be exposed, and the light management will be specifically targeted by ICFO's presenter.

With the total amount of worldwide data skyrocketing, the global data storage demand is predicted to grow to 1.75 × 10^14 GB by 2025. Traditional storage methods have difficulties keeping pace given that current storage media have a maximum density of 10^3 GB/mm3. As such, data production will far exceed the capacity of currently available storage methods. The costs of maintaining and transferring data, as well as the limited lifespans and significant data losses associated with current technologies also demand advanced solutions for information storage. Nature offers a powerful alternative through the storage of information that defines living organisms in unique orders of four bases (A, T, C, G) located in molecules called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA molecules as information carriers have many advantages over traditional storage media. Their high storage density, potentially low maintenance cost, ease of synthesis, and chemical modification make them an ideal alternative for information storage. To this end, rapid progress has been made over the past decade by exploiting user-defined DNA materials to encode information. In our project we explored data storage relying on DNA nanostructures (as opposed to DNA sequence) as well as on other combinations of nanomaterials.

It is estimated that 10 % of global greenhouse gas emissions are related to cooling buildings and environments. With demand for cooling expected to grow tenfold by 2050, and the increasing frequency of extreme heat waves, improving the efficiency of cooling systems plays a critical role in addressing the global climate challenge. Passive Radiative Cooling (PRC) materials – an emerging technology that can cool to sub-ambient temperatures, even in direct sunlight, without using electricity – could be an efficient alternative to conventional systems to save energy and reduce heat gains. However, the lack of standardisation and guidance for testing PRC materials and their properties, along with no standardised methods for testing their real-world performance, are limiting their uptake.

The PaRaMetriC project aims at developing a metrological framework to classify and compare PRC materials, assessing and validating appropriate benchmark materials and laboratory testing methods. It will also focus on characterising the properties of PRC materials and develop modelling methods, setting standards for quality control and allowing long-term effectiveness to be evaluated. The project will also create protocols and best-practice guides for in-field testing and set up long-term tests across several sites to assess material performance under a variety of real-world conditions. This project will help drive innovation in PRC technology, producing more energy-efficient cooling to meet rising needs.

ENSEMBLE