UCD engineers secure EU funding to develop Terahertz technologies

CELTA members from European research institutes and industrial partners including UCD’s Prof John Sheridan and Dr James Ryle

http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2016/07/20/ucd-celta-eu-funding-terahertz/

As part of the ITN CELTA project, UCD researchers will receive funding to create advanced Terahertz systems, with the emphasis on making them available for commercial applications

Terahertz wavelengths, which have sizes between those of visible light and microwaves, literally allow the user to see through walls and opens the way for safer biomedical imaging. Researchers within the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Profs Tom Brazil and John T. Sheridan) are part of a recently funded EU project with the challenging aim of developing such technologies.

The specific goal of ITN CELTA (Integrated Research Training Network on Convergence of Electronics and Photonics Technologies for Enabling Terahertz Applications) is to develop technologies and complete sub-systems for sensing, instrumentation, imaging, spectroscopy and communications utilising the Terahertz spectrum. It is the largest EU Training Network in this area.

CELTA will provide PhD degrees to a group of 15 early-stage researchers (ESRs), educating them with a set of interdisciplinary skills covering photonics, electronics and signal processing that will allow them to create advanced Terahertz systems with emphasis on making them available for commercial applications.

CELTA is co-ordinated by Prof Idelfonso Tafur Monroy from the Technical University of Denmark. The 11 beneficiaries in CELTA are leading research groups in the area of Terahertz photonics, Terahertz electronics, algorithms, signal processing and sub-Terahertz communications with strong track records of collaboration dating back more than 25 years. CELTA is supported and complemented by 14 partner organisations from industry, including four spin-offs from the CELTA consortium.

CELTA contributes to the European Research Area by helping to overcome the gap between the fragmented efforts in Europe on electronics and photonics Terahertz by introducing the strategy of converged electronics and photonics co-design in its research programme. CELTA makes a special effort on establishing a common engineering language in its training programme across the electronics, photonics and applications disciplines. This common engineering language and converged co-design is considered mandatory to make the next logical step towards efficient and innovative solutions that can reach the market.

To push forward its strategy, CELTA will integrate multidisciplinary scientific expertise, complementary skills and experience working in academia and industry, to empower ESRs to work in interdisciplinary teams so that each ESR may integrate his or her activities into one or more of the three demonstrators that will be realised by the end of the project: a Terahertz vector network analyser, an imager and a beam-steering system.

CELTA is embedded in and contributes to key research, innovation and education areas within the UCD’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Detailed information on the CELTA consortium, its research programme and open ESR positions can be found on www.celta-itn.eu.