The future of energy supply depends on innovative breakthroughs regarding the design of cheap, sustainable, and efficient systems for the conversion and storage of renewable energy sources such as solar energy. The sunlight-driven production of hydrogen or other carbon-based fuels through reduction of water or CO2, with oxygen evolution as a by-product, appears to be a promising and appealing solution, which could be answered by the design of light-driven devices able to achieve light-to-chemical energy conversion. The design of such efficient photo-electrochemical systems remains to be achieved. In order to reach this ambitious goal, PhotoCAT will be undertaken by a consortium gathering teams with complementary expertise in the fields of molecular H2-evolving catalysts and surface chemistry (France CEA/LCBM), molecular CO2-reducing catalysts and homogeneous CO2-reducing photocatalysts (Tokyo Tech) and solid-state material chemistry (Kyoto Univ.). As a first step towards this end, PhotoCAT aims at designing new biomimetic materials for the engineering of photoelectrodes that will be finally implemented within a Photo-Electrochemical Cell (PEC) consisting of a photoanode for water oxidation (O2 evolution), feeding a photocathode with electrons for H2 evolution or CO2 reduction. This process reproduces the Z-scheme found in the photosynthetic machinery of plants and micro-algae. Novel H2-evolving or CO2-reducing photocathodes will be developed through the cografting of bio-inspired H2-evolving catalysts and CO2-reduction catalysts together with metal-organic and fully organic dyes onto transparent p-type semi-conductive substrates such as NiO. These photocathodes will be developed in collaboration between all three partners of PhotoCAT (Kyoto Univ for the fabrication of NiO-based materials, TokyoTech for metal-organic dyes and CO2-reducing catalysts and CEA/LCBM for H2-evolution catalysts, organic dyes and grafting methodologies. Two types of photoanode materials will be used for the construction of the final PEC devices: inorganic metal-oxide-based photoanode materials developed at Kyoto Univ. and molecular photoanode materials obtained from collaboration with a group from Arizona State University (Devens Gust, Ana and Tom Moore).

The aim of the research is to advance therapeutic tools against diabetes based on intestinal bacteria producing naturally the metabolite 4-cresol, which is negatively associated with type 2 diabetes in humans and, at low level, exhibits multiple beneficial effects on diabetes, obesity and fatty liver disease in preclinical models of diabetes and obesity. Building on teams with complementary expertise in rodent physiology and in microbiology, we will isolate and engineer bacterial species to promote their enzymatic capacity to naturally produce 4-cresol, which will be inoculated in preclinical models of type 2 diabetes and obesity in order to test the therapeutic value of intestinal enrichment in these bacteria on the severity and inheritance of diabetes phenotypes. Deep phenotyping in the animal models used will provide information on changes in glucose tolerance, insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, inflammation and fatty liver induced by the inoculation of 4-cresol producing bacteria. This research, which addresses the phenomenon of cross talk between the gastro intestinal microbiota and the host physiology, and its contribution to diabetes etiopathogenesis, may foster future clinical developments and provide new microbiota-based therapeutic solutions to reduce hyperglycemia in diabetic patients through 4-cresol-promoted stimulation of insulin secretion.

Optical interferometry enables us to obtain displacement information of an object through a phase shift of reflected electromagnetic waves. An optomechanical coupling is a naturally existing feedback system in the interferometry, which has been applied to a variety of precise measurements including quantum ground state cooling of a macroscopic object, gravitational-wave detection, and nuclear magnetic resonance. The optomechanical coupling can be tuned through an initial offset to a resonant cavity mode and it is hitherto the only way to control the feedback system. Here we propose an active feedback system using the optomechanical coupling and a quantum filter that can be made of either a non-linear crystal or a cryogenic micro-resonator. The feedback system creates a resonator called "optical spring." An additional quantum feedback loop with a non-linear crystal increases the real part of the spring (signal gain enhancement), while in the foreseen conditions, a feedback loop with a cryogenic micro-resonator decreases the imaginary part of the spring (signal bandwidth enhancement). Our proposal is two-sided. First we establish proof-of-principle experiments for the two different types of quantum feedback system. In parallel, we start new experiments or rapidly promote on-going experiments to explore an innovative application of these state-of-the-art techniques. (i) Test of macroscopic quantum mechanics: The existence of a fundamental length at Planck scale leads to a modification of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. An extremely high precision measurement of a macroscopic object is required to observe a possible deviation from conventional quantum mechanics. We propose to perform three experiments with different resonators: a cryogenic micro-pillar (30 µg), optically-levitated mirrors (1 mg), and a torsion pendulum (10 mg). As possible deviations from standard quantum mechanics are expected to depend on the probed mass, a comparison of the results in our three state-of-art experiments might open a window to the quantum-classical border. (ii) Gravitational-wave detection: Gravitational waves (GW) are ripples of spacetime generated by massive astronomical events. A gravitational-wave detector is a km-scale Michelson interferometer with an optical resonator in each baseline. Both the signal gain and signal bandwidth enhancement can be used to improve the sensitivity of a gravitational-wave detector. A significant improvement can be expected at frequencies higher than a few kilo-Hertz where a number of valuable astrophysics sources are yet to be observed by currently operating detectors (a) The signal gain enhancement enables us to create a 3-km optical spring with 40-kg mirrors resonating at 3 kHz, and a gravitational-wave signal is parametrically amplified at the resonant frequencies of the spring. We propose to design a next-generation gravitational-wave detector based on this scheme after demonstrating the enhancement in the prototype experiment. (b) The signal bandwidth enhancement enables us to expand the observation band from a few hundred Hertz to a few ten kilohertz. (iii) Measurement of nuclear magnetic resonance: A simple electric LC circuit can play a role of the quantum feedback filter. Although classical thermal noise in the coil will overwrite the quantum property of our optomechanical oscillator, the change of the dynamics provides us with information of the coil. We call it Electro-Mechano-Optical (EMO) system. This transition can be applied to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Up-conversion of NMR signals from radio to optical frequencies with a metal-coated, high-Q membrane oscillator is a promising technique, with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) currently limited by Brownian noise of the membrane. Using a state-of-the-art phononic- and photonic-crystal embedded SiN membrane, we are aiming at improving both mechanical and optical Qs of the EMO system to reduce the Brownian noise and thus to boost the SNR.

In the near future, many AI-based systems will be deployed in real life scenarios. These systems will have to co-exist with humans in dynamically changing environments. Towards this future, one fundamental question needs to be answered affirmatively: Can the AI-based system operate reliably in all rare and critical scenarios? Although data-driven machine learning has catalyzed significant progress in building AI systems for various tasks, the answer remains negative as rare and critical scenarios cannot be directly observed in the real world for the very reason that they are rare and dangerous. This proposal lays out a research program for securing a positive answer to this key question for the future of AI. We propose to build a comprehensive framework for generating photorealistic, virtual rare and critical scenarios. The research program consists of two phases: a) learning and building rich representations of our dynamic 3D world from visual data, and b) systematically combining key components of them to generate rare and critical scenarios. The intrinsic representation will encompass all physical aspects (e.g. appearance, geometry, and dynamics) as well as semantic aspects (e.g. object class) of our visual world.

We propose to create new light-responsive chiral hybrid photoluminescent materials capable of absorbing and emitting chiral visible radiation based on optically active chiral nanofibers and their homogeneous inclusion in multi-dimensional matrices. These nanoparticles will be created by grafting luminescent molecules onto chiral silica nanoribbons with well controlled handedness, periodicity, diameter and length. The resulting architectures will be capable of absorbing light and and emitting chiral visible radiation. By carefully controlling the adsorption and aggregation of luminophore molecules on the surface, we aim to induce controllable spectral circular polarisation. These chiral nanostructures, based on bottom-up molecular self-assembly approach, will then be incorporated in various templates in order to induce hierarchical 1, 2 and 3D organization: 1) 1D nanofibers with chiral helices aligned along the axis, based on electrospinning techniques, 2) incorporation in 2D polymer films via low-cost solution coating processes such as spraying from a dispersion in solution, 3) using these silica nanohelices as polymer cross linkers to induce gelation based on 3D network formation, or silica helices adsorped on particles, were the particles are organized to form crystal colloids. The originality of our approach is based on the use of silica nanohelices as a template for the chiral organization of the chromophores instead of previously reported organic structures which are less robust and less well defined. The robustness of the templates allows their dispersion in large range of conditions (temperature, pH, salinity, etc…). Since the chirality originates from the substrates, it allow us to use non chiral luminophores, which enhances the versatility and the richness of the molecular approach we plan to use. There are many possible applications of these systems, amongst which the most promising is the generation of Circularly Polarized Luminescent (CPL) polymer films with limited energy loss in order to improve the energy efficiency and ultimately the design the flexible optoelectronic displays. The CPLhelixCNPA project offers significant potential for generating knowledge leading to economical and ecological advances and technological innovations in the field of 3D displays as it aims at generation of CPL signals by simple and accessible luminescent molecules by the use of silica nano-helices. This project has direct relevance with the call while aiming at design of new innovative materials for the application in the field of flexible electronics based on molecular technology. Indeed, to achieve such functional architectures, molecular technologies will be crucial at all steps of the conception. The photochromic nanofibers are made from silica sol-gel transcription of nanometrically controlled molecular assemblies at room temperature using water as solvent based on molecules which are synthesized at low cost and with high yield fabrication, these parameters are all crucial for environment friendliness and greenness of the procedure. To achieve this goal, a high-quality and interdisciplinary research in the field of nanotechnology is required. The consortium created for this collaborative research shows a perfect complementarity while sharing specific or common competences between the partners. While all the partners have long been collaborating on various projects, the proposed project opens a new direction of research which requires strong collaboration of all the partners. A proposal for creating a new Laboratoire Internationale Associé (LIA) has just been accepted by CNRS. This LIA, “Chiral Nanostructures for Photonic Applications (CNPA) - Hierarchical chiral nanostructures based on molecular assemblies for light management, sensor, chiral separation and catalysis”, is structured around 10 groups from Bordeaux, Kumamoto and Kyoto Universities, and the present proposal constitutes one of the core projects.