You are here : Home > Projet ENLIGHTENED

Europe


ENLIGHTENED


The ENLIGHTENED project is devising a system to analyze the mass distribution of species that are today out of the reach of any commercial instrument. A new system architecture will be demonstrated with new optomechanical resonators for mass sensing.This will reveal new physics governing noise limitation at the nanoscale.



Published on 23 April 2021



Nanophotonic Nanomechanical Mass Spectrometry for Biology and Health


The ENLIGHTENED project is devising a system to analyze the mass distribution of species that are today out of the reach of any commercial instrument. A new system architecture will be demonstrated with new optomechanical resonators for mass sensing.This will reveal new physics governing noise limitation at the nanoscale.





 

Starting date : Jun. 2014 > May 2020

Lifetime: 72 months


Program in support : ERC Consolidator


 

Status project : complete


CEA-Leti's contact :

Sébastien Hentz

Yves Quéré

 

Project Coordinator: CEA-Leti (FR)


Partners:  n/a


Publications:

  • Nat. Commun. 2018, (2018) 9:3283, E. Sage, M. Sansa,S. Fostner, M. Defoort, M. Gély, A.-K. Naik, E.Colinet, C. Masselon, A. Brenac, S. Hentz.
  •  Nat. Nanotechnol. 2016, 1–31, M. Sansa, E. Sage, E.-C. Bullard, M. Gély, T. Alava, E. Colinet, K. Naik, L.-G. Villanueva, L. Duraffourg, M.-L. Roukes, S.Hentz.
  • S. Dominguez-Medina, S. Fostner, M. Defoort, M. Sansa, A.-K. Stark, M.-A. Halim, E. Vernhes, M.Gely, G.Jourdan, T. Alava, P. Boulanger, C.Masselon, S. Hentz, S. Science (80-. ) 2018, 362 (6417), 918–922.



Investment:  € 2 m.

EC Contribution€ 2 m.


Stakes

  • For the first time, ENLIGHTENED has shown that the model of resonator frequency stability commonly accepted by the community is erroneous for silicon NEMS resonators.

  • We have also demonstrated that our system could perform mass measurements efficiently in a mass range outside the range of any commercial instrument. This was shown using the highest molecular mass ever measured: a bacteriophage virus capsid.

  • We have performed the first single-particle mass spectrometry analysis with optomechanical resonators.

OBJECTIVES


  • Mass spectrometry has become a routinely used analytical tool in modern biological research and has gained a foothood in recent years in the realm of clinical diagnostic and screening. However, it the technique remains expensive and complex, and it cannot analyze biomolecules heavier than a few Mda because its principle depends on ionization. Furthermore, it cannot characterize the genetic diversity of such heavy entities because it averages more than 100 million particles per measurement.

  • Building on nanomechanical mass sensing, ENLIGHTENED aims to demonstrate a breakthrough mass spectrometry concept for intact biomolecules in a so far unexplored high mass range based on single molecule sensitivity and unprecedented resolving power.


  • ENLIGHTENED objectives:
    • Demonstration of a novel system architecture for transferring all single mass neutral particles to the detector in a focused beam
    • Development of a new class of nanomechanical mass detectors with close-to-100% capture cross sections. These detectors are ultra-dense arrays of resonating devices, which are coupled to photonic resonators ensuring efficient transduction, large scale multiplexing, high frequency operation and single mass self-oscillation
    • Understanding and suppressing the limiting source of frequency noise to improve the mass limit of detection of
    nanomechanical devices by orders of magnitude
    • Demonstrating the full potential of this breakthrough technology by acquiring the mass spectra of high-mass bioparticles never anaylzed before. Those bioparticles were selected with reference to a number of biological and clinical issues.

  • ENLIGHTENED uses photons to shed light on unexplored high mass species on an individual level; this is of major biomedical significance and will expand our understanding of simple life forms.



IMPACT

  • ENLIGHTENED has enabled the EU to pioneer NEMS-based Mass Spectrometry systems for biology and the biotech industry.