The creation of QRBIT was formally approved by the NTUA Administrative Council (05/06/2025) and the ICCS Board of Directors (02/05/2025). Notably, ICCS and NTUA are participating in the company’s share capital through the NTUA Special Account for Research Funds and ICCS, further solidifying their commitment to innovation and technology transfer.

QRBIT was co-founded by ICCS researchers Dr. Ioannis Giannoulis, Dr. Aristeidis Stathis, and Mr. Argyrios Danos, with the invaluable support of ECE faculty members Prof. Iraklis Avramopoulos (Head of PCRL), Prof. Athanasios Panagopoulos, and Asst. Prof. Dimitrios Apostolopoulos. The spin-off builds on the strong foundation of cutting-edge research and innovation developed within ICCS/PCRL in the areas of photonic communications and quantum cryptography.

QRBIT’s mission is to pioneer hardware and software solutions for quantum satellite communications, with a focus on:

• Designing and developing photonic components and systems for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) in free-space and satellite links.
• Creating advanced ground station and telescope infrastructures for both classical and quantum communication applications.
• Developing software tools for the design, optimization, and management of laser-based classical and quantum satellite missions.

The establishment of QRBIT reflects ICCS’s strategic vision to foster entrepreneurial initiatives and promote the translation of research into real-world technological advancements. Through this new venture, ICCS strengthens its role in the global ecosystem of quantum and optical communications.

Let us extend our warm congratulations to the founders of QRBIT and wish them great success in this exciting endeavor!

SPRINTER is working on the development of advanced networks for future smart manufacturing aiming to build a super-fast, energy-efficient industrial internet combining laser-based communication and advanced wireless technology. The project is funded by the European Commission through a €6 million grant under the Horizon Europe programme .

Today’s  factories rely on a patchwork of copper cables, conventional Wi-Fi, and outdated switching systems that are too slow and inefficient for the demands of Industry 5.0. SPRINTER aims to replace decaying infrastructure with laser-driven, high-speed optical and hybrid wireless communication systems, capable of delivering reliable, real-time connections between machines, rooms, and even entire industrial buildings.

“Industry 5.0 demands faster, smarter, and more robust networks,” says Efstathios Andrianopoulos of PCRL, the project coordinator. “Our goal is to make Europe the world leader in industrial photonics — providing the tools to support the next generation of automation, robotics, and intelligent systems.”

SPRINTER’s technological focus is centered on four key prototypes:

1. Ultra-fast 200 Gb/s optical transceivers – designed for high-capacity core networks.
2. Hybrid free-space optical and mmWave transceivers – ensuring robust wireless connections in harsh industrial environments.
3. Wavelength-tuneable 10 Gb/s transceivers – capable of dynamically adapting to network demands in real time.
4. A Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) – optimised for space-division multiplexing to intelligently route data and improve network reliability.

By combining these innovations, SPRINTER is developing a unified communication platform able to support time-sensitive networking where even millisecond delays can disrupt automation.

“Factories are full of moving parts, dust, and interference — a nightmare for traditional WiFi,” says Efstathios Andrianopoulos. “That’s why we’re developing hybrid transceivers that combine laser and radio technologies: to maintain wireless links, even in the noisiest, most chaotic settings.”

These innovations will support the real-time communication needed for next-gen factories, where even small delays can cause big problems.

Click here to read the full article by Photonics21.

PLEIADES – project website now live

UK, March 5^th, 2025 – we are excited to announce that the official website of PLEIADES is now live!

The new website serves as a central hub for all information related to PLEIADES, providing insights into our mission, objectives, and latest developments.

Visitors can explore key project details, access resources, and stay updated on upcoming activities. With a user-friendly design and intuitive navigation, the website aims to engage stakeholders, researchers, and the general public.

We invite everyone to visit the website at https://pleiades-project.eu/ and learn more about PLEIADES. Stay connected with us for future updates!

About PLEIADES

PLEIADES – Advancing Aerospace Composites through Induction Welding and New Vitrimeric Formulations Enhanced by Integrated Photonic Sensors, Providing Data to Digital Supply Chain, SHM, Maintenance – is an EU-funded project bringing together different disciplines and key technologies that will contribute to advancing further composite aerostructures and promote the digital transformation in aviation.

For media inquiries, please contact: info@pleiades-project.eu

The PLEIADES project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101192721.

AEOLUS Achievements

The fabrication process for AEOLUS Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) was optimized to improve reliability, addressing graphene delamination issues through an enhanced encapsulation design. Key photonic components, including passive elements, thermal sources, photodetectors, and Ge components, were successfully fabricated and evaluated for performance, ensuring a stable and efficient sensing platform.

Key achievements include:

• Proof of concept validation of the AEOLUS approach

Using an integrated thermal source (Graphene) and suspended Si waveguides as sensing elements, we have managed to detect CO₂ gas measurements. This approach, coupled with the achievements and proven components below (such as Graphene photodetectors, wafer scale capping lids etc.) allow for a fully integrated multi-gas sensing concept to be realised! Significantly lowering the cost and size of the photonic sensors (non-dispersive infra-red absorption type (NDIR).

• Graphene thermal source

The graphene thermal source has been validated, with coupling efficiencies of up to 70% into the suspended waveguides and stable for hours.

• Graphene photodetector

AEOLUS successfully fabricated graphene photodetectors with 400 nm Al₂O₃ encapsulation and split gates. Challenges with suspended waveguides were resolved, enabling graphene deposition on thermal sources.

• Si Passive components

AEOLUS fabricated passive components in two runs, refining waveguides, resonators, and grating couplers. The second run improved yield to 100%, with propagation losses of 1.5–3.4 dB/cm. The resonators allow to select specific wavelengths from the thermal emitter, thusly selecting the gas that each sensor can detect through the NDIR absortpion process.

• Ge Passive components

AEOLUS investigated and fabricated passive Ge elements using epitaxial growth on a Ge-on-Si platform. Two runs produced MMIs and grating couplers, with the second run improving stability after initial over etching issues, achieving a 64% confinement factor.

• Wafer scale capping lid (protective lid)

AEOLUS developed wafer-scale process to protect the suspended waveguides from debris but allow proper air flow to enable gas detection. These capping lids use Al-Au thermo-compression bonding (250°C, 29 kN) and they can be used to cap individual sensors.

• IoT Platform and Machine Learning

The AEOLUS IoT Platform, integrated with OTE’s LeonR&Do, uses AI/ML for predictive air quality monitoring. It supports various sensors, offers real-time analysis, alerts, and secure data visualization, and includes a WebGUI for real-time and predictive sensor data access.

• Dissemination and communication

The AEOLUS consortium has actively promoted its innovations through dissemination, exploitation, and communication efforts to maximize impact. Market analysis and business models are in progress, while outreach is maintained via social media, a project website, and high-impact journal publications. AEOLUS also joined ECREAM, fostering collaboration in environmental sensing, and contributed to Photonics21’s 2024 meeting, helping shape EU research priorities.

Impact of the AEOLUS Project

AEOLUS is developing a miniaturized, low-cost Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC)-based gas sensor that integrates machine learning for smart IoT applications. It offers a smaller, more efficient alternative to traditional NDIR sensors through wafer-scale manufacturing and hybrid integration, reducing size and cost considerable while maintaining the reliability of photonic sensors over the electrochemical ones.

Key Applications:

✔ Safety alarms and safety switches based on gas sensors

✔ Outdoor air quality monitoring

✔ Indoor air quality

✔ Industrial applications

Beyond tech innovation, AEOLUS advances scientific research, sensor design, and machine learning for air quality, benefiting both industry and the European research community.

For more information, please contact:
Prof. Hercules Avramopoulos
hav@mail.ntua.gr

Dr. Dimitris Apostolopoulos
apostold@mail.ntua.gr

Dr. Harry Zervos
hzervos@mail.ntua.gr

[January 2025 – December 2027]

PCRL participates in PLEIADES Project. The composites aerostructures market is projected to grow to 116 billion by 2030, attributed to the increasing demand for advanced materials in aircraft manufacturing, which exhibit lightweight properties and can withstand harsh environments, ultimately improving the aircraft performance and cost savings. PLEIADES project aims to address these needs, making significant steps towards meeting the industry’s requirements through its proposed solution.

PLEIADES is bringing together different disciplines and key technologies that will contribute in advancing further composite aerostructures and promote the digital transformation in aviation. PLEIADES multiple disciplines extend across a wide variety such as formulations and characterisation of new composite materials, automation of induction welding processes for composites leveraging integrated sensing, disassembly of composites joints, healing and maintenance schedules. These will be complemented by the development of passive PIC based multi sensors, the development of a unified QA-SHM methodology, the extensive modelling for induction welding and the development of material, healing, damage propagation, and de-icing models. All of these disciplines will be pursued within PLEIADES and with tangible use cases by the aerospace, in synergy with Clean Aviation partnership to ensure its innovations are aligned with it.

The technological advancements of PLEIADES will address the needs for high-volume sustainable manufacturing with integration inspection and recycling and circularity in the aerospace industry. It is expected that by making full use of the new technologies, that promote sustainability and circularity, cost savings of at least 30%-40% can be achieved. Within the project, a maintenance and repair protocol will be developed, as well as an innovative SHM methodology. Finally, The Digital Twin developed will contribute to the advancing of the digital research infrastructure, in accordance with Clean Aviation.

Read PLEIADES 1st Press Release here.

The PLEIADES project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101192721.

[January 2024 – December 2026]

PCRL coordinates the LaiQa Project. LaiQa comes as a technology intensive research and innovation action aiming to develop and advance critical components and technologies necessary to build a global spaced-based quantum network. LaiQa envisions to realize unconditionally secure quantum communications over long distances bringing functional QKD components together with advanced system integration techniques towards deployable space-QKD systems. The project’s objectives will include the development of space-deployable, high-brightness 1550 nm entangled photon pair source (EPPS), a space-suitable Decoy State – BB84 Prepare and Measure (P&M) source, a photonic integrated EPPS for next-generation on-board sender stations, a quantum memory for long-distance entanglement distribution, an advanced fiber-coupling/adaptive optics system for converged space/terrestrial QKD segments, and software components towards the optimization of LaiQa architecture. The project will demonstrate P&M- and entanglement based QKD systems both in lab/terrestrial FSO testbeds and in field demonstrations in Helmos optical ground station (OGS). LaiQa will also mobilize its consortium to prioritize standardization activities that focus on space components for P&M- and entanglement-QKD, consider interfaces and parameters for them to propose specification standards and potentially trigger new standardization activities within EU.

[March 2023 – February 2027]

PCRL participates in QSNP Project. The Quantum Secure Networks Partnership (QSNP) project aims at creating a sustainable European ecosystem in quantum cryptography and communication. A majority of its partners, which include world-leading academic groups, research and technology organizations (RTOs), quantum component and system spin-offs, cybersecurity providers, integrators, and telecommunication operators, were members of the European Quantum Flagship projects CIVIQ, UNIQORN and QRANGE. QSNP thus gathers the know-how and expertise from all technology development phases, ranging from innovative designs to development of prototypes for field trials. QSNP is structured around three main Science and Technology (ST) pillars. The first two pillars, “Next Generation Protocols” and “Integration”, focus on frontier research and innovation, led mostly by academic partners and RTOs. The third ST pillar “Use cases and Applications” aims at expanding the industrial and economic impact of QSN technologies and is mostly driven by companies. In order to achieve the specific objectives within each pillar and ensure that know-how transfer and synergy between them are coherent and effective, QSNP has established ST activities corresponding to the three main layers of the technology value chain, “Components and Systems”, “Networks” and “Cryptography and Security”. This framework will allow achieving the ultimate objective of developing quantum communication technology for critical European infrastructures, such as EuroQCI, as well as for the private information and communication technology (ICT) sectors. QSNP will contribute to the European sovereignty in quantum technology for cybersecurity. Additionally, it will generate significant economic benefits to the whole society, including training new generations of scientists and engineers, as well as creating high-tech jobs in the rapidly growing quantum industry.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the project “Quantum Security Networks Partnership” (QSNP, grant agreement No 101114043).

[January 2021 – December 2023]

PCRL coordinated the AEOLUS Project. AEOLUS, leveraging on the experience of its partners on novel photonic components (e.g. broadband thermal emitter, graphene photodetector), demonstrated in an operational environment (TRL 7) an affordable, miniaturised, multi-gas (10 – 15 gases) sensor based on highly integrated photonic chips in the mid-IR (3 μm – 10 μm). AEOLUS sensors are cloud connected, deployed in an existing IoT testbed, while the plethora of data acquired will be used to develop deep learning algorithms for chemometric analysis. AEOLUS sensing system demonstrated the calculation and accurate prediction of indoor and outdoor air quality, greenhouse gases concentration, and toxic gas leakages detection. The sensing system provides many functionalities for the end-user such as real-time alerts, notifications, visualized reports and overlays while it will allow taking automatic actions where they are needed. AEOLUS also demonstrated how user engagement can be promoted through its system, employing gamification concepts and incentivise the end users. AEOLUS targets for a cheap portable sensor, tested for its interoperability, with many functionalities and quality of life services, targeting a very wide range of applications to ensure its widespread deployment. The proliferation of the AEOLUS sensor in the community acts in an exponential manner (leveraging Big Data techniques and Deep Learning algorithms), further enhancing the system’s accuracy and speed. AEOLUS sensing system is completely in line with its industrial partners’ roadmaps and exploitation plans and it is foreseen to have a product in the market 0-2 years from the end of the project. Ultimately, the acquired data and analysis were made available to policy-makers and stakeholders, so that AEOLUS has a far-reaching impact in EU’s citizens life.

Read the project’s final press release here.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101017186 and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership.

[January 2021 – December 2023]

PCRL coordinated the PICaboo Project. The rapid expansion of cloud applications, 5G, and IoT pushed modern networks to their limits, requiring higher capacity and lower latency. Photonic integration emerged as a key enabling technology to address these challenges and introduce new products and services to the market.

PICaboo developed novel building blocks on the InP PIC platform of TUe and III-V Lab, following the generic foundry model to enhance PIC performance and reduce development costs. Compact models of these building blocks were created and compiled into PDK-compatible libraries, enabling designers to explore their use across a wide range of applications and maximizing their exploitation potential.

PICaboo’s PIC demonstrators transformed optical metro and access networks by improving speed, reducing footprint, lowering power consumption, and cutting costs. The high-speed EAM-based transmitters incorporated all-optical equalization functionality on-chip, scaling PON line rates to 50/100Gb/s while minimizing the need for electronic signal pre-processing to meet the 29dB power budget within dispersion limits.

Both single EAM-MZM and coherent EAM-IQM transmitter PICs achieved significant power consumption reductions—50% and 65%, respectively, compared to 50G EML solutions—while lowering overall costs by nearly 20%. Additionally, the dual-polarization coherent receiver PIC featured integrated reset-free phase and polarization control, allowing complex DSP functions to be performed directly in the optical domain. This led to power consumption reductions of over 30% and cost benefits of 3.6x compared to standard coherent transceivers, thanks to simplified direct detection DSPs and low-cost tunable lasers. These advancements positioned PICaboo as an attractive technology for the 20-80km DCI range.

Exploitation of PIC demonstrators was pursued by NOKIA and ADVA, while VLC leveraged the developed PDK libraries to facilitate the adoption of PICaboo building blocks by end-users.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101017114 and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership.

[January 2021 – April 2026]

PCRL participates in PhotonHub Europe Project. PhotonHub Europe will establish a single pan-EU Photonics Innovation Hub which integrates the best-in-class photonics technologies, facilities, expertise and experience of 53 partners from all over Europe, including the coordinators of EU pilot lines and local photonics hubs representing 18 regions, as a one-stop-shop solution offering a comprehensive range of supports to industry for the accelerated uptake and deployment of photonics. PhotonHub will provide European companies, in particular “non-photonics” SMEs and mid-caps that are first users and early adopters of photonics, with open access and guided orienteering to the following key support services: training and upskilling opportunities within PhotonHub’s Demo and Experience Centres throughout Europe and enhanced by digital tools for online learning; “test before invest” innovation support capabilities to engage with companies on highly collaborative Innovation Projects aimed at TRL acceleration from prototyping (TRL3-4) to upscaling (TRL5-6) to manufacturing (TRL7-8), and complemented by targeted business and IP advisory supports; and support to find investment through investment-readiness coaching and investor match-making organised in collaboration with major regional and European venture fora and deep tech Investor Days. PhotonHub will uniquely support cross-border innovation activities of European companies, while simultaneously working closely with the local photonics hubs to develop and roll out best practices of the “lighthouse” regions for ongoing regional financial support of SME innovation activities and to support the creation of new innovation hubs covering most regions of Europe. Finally, PhotonHub will fine-tune and implement its business plan for long-term sustainability in the form of the PhotonHub Europe Association as a durable entity which is deeply rooted within the wider ecosystem of local, regional and EU-DIHs for maximum leverage and impact on European competitiveness and sovereignty.

PhotonHub has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Grant Agreement n*101016665, in Public Private Partnership with Photonics21.