Microwave photonics technology (MWP) has the potential to create a huge commercial impact by bringing together the worlds of microwave engineering and photonics and by enabling processing functionalities in microwave systems that are complex or totally impossible in the microwave domain. The main reason for not having achieved this so far has been the lack of a photonic integration technology that could address the specific needs of MWP. HAMLET aims to fill this gap and develop a disruptive photonic integration platform that will enable the development of very large scale photonic integrated circuits (VLSPICs) with cascaded stages of tunable structures for analog and digital signal processing, variety of optical processing functionalities and ultra-low optical loss. To this end, HAMLET will employ two integration levels. At the first one, it will develop a disruptive PZT-based phase-shifter technology on TriPleX platform with lower power consumption compared to thermal phase-shifters by almost one million times. At the same level HAMLET will incorporate the deposition of graphene films as a standard step in the fabrication process of polymer platform and will develop arrays of electro-absorption modulators with high bandwidth (>25 GHz). At the second integration level, HAMLET will bring together the two platforms under a 3D hybrid integration engine, and will develop circuits with record scale of integrated components (>300), record scale of functionalities with optical beamforming for 64-element antenna arrays at first place, and novel use as the interface between the wireless and the optical part at the antenna units of emerging 5G networks. Finally, in parallel with the system-related exploitation, HAMLET will also work on the unification of the two platforms under a multi-project wafer run type of services to external users, where the 3D integration engine will be used for provision of supersets of components and tools already available in the two platforms.

Current diagnostic options for cancer treatment monitoring rely on imaging techniques and cannot guarantee proper assessment of therapeutic response. This project aims to develop a disruptive Point of Care (PoC) device for cancer early diagnosis and treatment monitoring as a companion diagnostics tool. One of the scientific breakthroughs of this project is the development of a “cancer stem cells” detection platform by virtue of expression of the cancer stem cell-specific transcription factor TWIST1, which controls the expression of the bloodstream circulating biomarkers POSTN, PCOLCE and TGBI. Cancer stem cells represent the most aggressive/tumorigenic cell compartment within tumors. BIOCDx will combine advanced concepts from the photonic, nano-biochemical, micro-fluidic and reader/packaging platforms aiming to overcome limitations related to detection reliability, sensitivity, specificity, compactness and cost issues. BIOCDx will rely on ultrasensitive, photonic elements based on an array of 8 asymmetric MZI waveguides fabricated by TriPlex technology on silicon nitride substrates and will achieve a 100 fold improvement –with respect to current technologies- of sensitivity (<10-8 RIU). BIOCDx will emlploy a smart concept of signal multiplexing for lowering the number of photodetectors required in multi-analyte detection and allowing for a substantial reduction of chip size. A sandwich assay, enhanced with nanoparticles, will be developed, based on the use of two antibodies per protein, to detect all three circulating proteins. This will enhance the limit of detection (LOD) close to femtomolar and the reliability. BIOCDx photonic, nano-biochemical, fluidics and packaging platforms will be integrated into a portable, desktop PoC device. Its validation in preclinical and clinical setting will be performed in three cancer types: breast cancer, hormone-independent prostate cancer and melanoma.