The FLUO proposal aims at bringing to the market a revolutionary device to measure fluorescence of a large variety of samples. Fluorescence is the property of molecules to emit radiation after being illuminated by an excitation light (usually in the ultraviolet). Fluorescence is a powerful analytical tool employed in many fields such as life science, biology, biotechnology, pharmacology, medical diagnostics, food industry, chemistry, photovoltaics and environment safety. Different chemical species can be uniquely identified with high sensitivity and specificity, in a non-destructive and non-invasive way. Spectrometers for measuring fluorescence already exist in the market, but they present drawbacks such as large footprint, high costs, long acquisition times and low sensitivity. Our ground-breaking patented technology, based on an ultrastable interferometer, overcomes all these issues, thus paving the way to many scientific and industrial applications. We have already initiated the customer identification and discovery process and we have received many positive feedbacks from potential customers. The FLUO project has two main goals: 1) We aim at pushing the Technology Readiness Level of the products to the ultimate maturity required to approach the market, corresponding to TRL9. A first working prototype has already been realized and tested; we will realize two second-generation prototypes that will be technically validated in the scientific and industrial sectors. 2) We will unleash the innovation potential of the approach, developing an exhaustive exploitation plan, based on a detailed market analysis and a profitable financial plan. We will benchmark our instrument against the competitors’ ones and sign commercial agreements with strategic partners. In the framework of the lean start-up approach, we will draft a first version of a Business Model Canvas and Business Plan in the view of the foundation of a start-up company towards the end of the FLUO project.

It is established that fossil fuels enabled a huge global economic growth although resulted to a fragile equilibrium between fuel prices and economic development, an unsustainable exploitation of the natural resources and prompted the ongoing environmental and societal crisis. Solar-driven energy production is pivotal for glass-architecture buildings, public transportation, domestic/corporate roof-tops/windows and rural areas (i.e. greenhouses); oriented to EU policies for Decarbonization of the EU building stock and European Green Deal for efficient, clean and cheap energy. In the last decade, solution-processable metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs), a technology originated from dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), the most prominent alternative to the dominant (95% market stake) 1st gen. PVs, has emerged. Major drawbacks towards the commercialization of PSCs are the: i) instability in prolonged environmental exposure (moisture, oxygen, irradiation), ii) toxicity of employed lead and its derivatives (i.e. PbI2) and iii) crystal defects resulting in energy losses due to non-radiative charge recombination. HaloCell aims to hamper losses due to non-radiative recombination, embody protection towards environmentally driven-hydrolysis/oxidation and manage toxicity of PSCs and luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs), harnessing a holistic halogen bonding strategy. Multifunctional tailored organic compounds will be utilized to enable selective interplay with perovskite crystal lattice via halogen bonding interactions towards PSCs with power conversion efficiencies and long-term stability under stress conditions (illumination, high temperature, ambient air) exceeding current state-of-the-art. The newly-developed PSCs will be exploited as solar cells coupled to luminescent solar concentrators for the fabrication of smart architecture elements (plexiglass windows).

Strong light-matter coupling (SC) is increasingly proposed as a powerful tool for post-synthetic control of the optoelectronic properties of organic materials. This technology aims to exploit the easily tuneable polariton states arising from the SC between confined light fields and excitons in organic materials to rewrite molecular energy landscapes and redirect physical pathways. Singlet fission (SF) is a promising technology for improving the efficiency of photovoltaic solar cells beyond their theoretical limit. The SF process consists of the splitting of a singlet excited state into two entangled triplet-triplet states that later become two independent triplets, yielding up to two excited states per absorbed photon –hence, more efficient solar cells. Despite its great potential, SF has been observed only in a limited number of organic compounds and in many cases with a low efficiency, being the synthesis of new derivatives a huge challenge. Recently, some theoretical studies proposed SC as a post-synthesis solution to enhance the SF performance of inefficient materials, by controlling their energy landscape. However, the growing difficulty in reproducing key results in the field of Organic Polaritonics (OP) suggests a poor understanding of the involved phenomena. The major research ambition of this MSCA proposal is to understand the working principles in the OP field and demonstrate that SC can be exploited to enhance the SF efficiency. The implementation of this MSCA proposal will provide a deep knowledge of SC at the molecular scale and how to control it at the macroscale within polaritonic devices, realizing the post-synthetic control of the molecular properties. This achievement will lead to important breakthroughs in Materials Science and Photonics, setting the basis for the OP field. Besides, the proposed research and training activities will expand my experience, research expertise and networks, providing a boost to my career as an independent researcher.

The UN-BIASED project aims at developing an innovative Scientific Modelling paradigm capable of mitigating potential cognitive biases affecting the modelling process in engineering applications. Nowadays, modelling is mostly a subjective process, strongly driven by the prejudice of the Modeller and anchored to the knowledge of well-determined pre-set physics. In practical applications, this often results into models affected by epistemic uncertainty. Data-driven techniques open the path for the construction of computerized models that are able to learn the physics underlying a complex system from the available data alone, requiring little, if not at all, subjectivity. Interestingly, these tools are generally used to obtain mere predictions and no credit is usually given to the possibility of translating the learned patterns and relations into interpretable theories and hypotheses. I propose to assess the physics learned by data-driven algorithms in terms of compliance with fundamental principles e.g., laws of thermodynamics, and to test them against a priori subjective hypotheses. This will expose differences between the actual experiment and the Modeller’s understanding of it. This allows for inverting the rationale underlying the classical modelling process, from a theory-to-data deductive assessment to a data-to-theory inductive inference. The ultimate goal is to advance the state-of-the-art by crafting a two-way modelling framework combining the hypotheses-driven and the data-driven approaches, to mitigate the consequences of biased modelling choices and improve the knowledge about complex physical systems. The proposed paradigm is not to be intended as a substitution of the classical Scientific Modelling method, but rather as an extension of it. The project is conceived with aerospace applications in mind, but the proposed methodology is straightforwardly applicable to the modelling of any physical problem of interest for the academy or the industry.

A new space era is coming. Numerous miniaturized probes will soon pervade the solar system for commercial and exploration needs. Constellations made of thousands of spacecraft will soon revolutionize space-based services. In the next future, minor bodies will be the final destination of diverse space missions, since they can give answers to the origin of life and provide resources for the sustainable development of the humanity. However, the state-of-the-art is to control space probes from ground. The need for large teams and specific infrastructures yields extremely expensive operations, that do not scale for small probes. The CASTOR project (Challenging Autonomous Spacecraft through Trajectory Optimization with Robustness) will address the spacecraft operation problem by fostering autonomous guidance and control for future small satellites in the vicinity of minor bodies. In order to reach its aim, the project envisages the definition of an efficient method for robust guidance and control in close proximity and its deployment on appropriate spacecraft-compatible hardware. A concurrent methodology will be exploited to implement the high-performance high-efficiency hardware-software set. Validation in a relevant laboratory environment will be performed exploiting the EXTREMA Simulation Hub, developed within the ERC EXTREMA project at Politecnico di Milano, and its associated facility RAFFAELLO, able to simulate the neighbourhood of an asteroid. CASTOR foresees the involvement of two top-level space agencies, NASA and ESA, and of one of the most important universities in the space research, Politecnico di Milano, that will surely help the project to reach its objectives and maximize its future impact. The outcomes from this project will have a significant impact on the future of space exploration and exploitation, increasing dramatically the potential scientific return and opening the space and its market to new operators, such as small enterprises and universities.