The team of engineers and researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences Technology Unit, led by David Gascón, has been granted an ATTRACT grant to develop an integrated signal processing for a new generation of active hybrid single photon sensors. This team holds long track record on developing photo-detectors and readout systems for cience (LHCb, CTA) and medical imaging. The call addressed researchers, entrepreneurs and companies who developed breakthrough projects on pioneering imaging and sensor technologies.

The project intends to develop a new hybrid detector with a very high time resolution, close to 10 ps, even for a single photon and for large detection areas. The performance of this sensor will be at least one order of magnitude better than any existing technology. It shall bring a revolution in medical imaging by enabling reconstruction-less PET based on Time-Of-Flight (TOF) measurements. Other application areas as transport, autonomous driving, cargo scanning, molecular imaging or particle physics experiments would also benefit from 10 ps TOF. The project will be carried out in close collaboration with CERN microelectronics and detector groups.

The ATTRACT Consortium launched the call last August, searching for the 170 best ideas. The received proposals have been peer-reviewed by an Independent R&D&I Committee of top experts in the field of detection and imaging technologies. The selected proposals will receive €100,000 of seed funding each to develop the concepts further during one year. At the end of that period, the funded projects will then present their results in a Final Assessment Conference in Brussels. The first meeting will take place on May 20th, at the CERN headquarters in Switzerland, where the proposals and projects will be presented.

The ATTRACT Consortium is a research initiative born in August 2018. Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 and participated by several institutions, it is a pioneer initiative aimed to bring together both the European’s fundamental research and the industry.

The main goal is to enhance the growth and potential of fundamental research in the development of breakthrough detection and imaging technologies, for both scientific and commercial use. The project also wants to promote a bigger return on Europe’s scientific investment, that will benefit both the economy and society, building bridges between the research infrastructures and the private sector.

ATTRACT is funded by the European’s Union Horizon 2020, and participated by the AALTO University; The European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN; the European Industrial Research Management Association EIRMA; the European Molecular Biology Laboratory EMBL; the ESADE Bussiness School; the European Southern Observatory ESRF; the European XFEL,and he Institut Laue-Langevin.

For more information consult the ATTRACT Strategic Programme.