Expertise:

EPFL is a leading engineering university in Europe. The School of Engineering (STI) is the largest of EPFL's schools, home to more than 60 laboratories. During the past 6 years, the School has put renewed focus on cutting edge research, which resulted in a continued increase in the number of scientific publications, helping to boost EPFL to 2nd place in the ARWU (Engineering and Computer Science, Shanghai 2016) ranking for Europe.
The Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUA Lab) mission is to model and develop hardware/software systems based on photonic/electronic quantum devices, using standard CMOS processes operated at cryogenic and room temperatures, including high-speed and time-resolved 2D/3D optical sensing as well as their applications (medical, security, ranging), pushing the limits of CMOS technology, imaging architecture, and applications.

Claudio Bruschini (Male) is a senior scientist and lab deputy with 25+ years of R&D experience, with a broad background in sensing devices, including quantum photonic devices (in particular single-photon detectors) and applications thereof, such as biophotonics, basic sciences and engineering.
He holds an MSc in high energy physics from the University of Genova and a PhD in Applied Sciences from the Free University of Brussels (VUB).
He started his career with INFN (Italy), then moved to CERN and eventually EPFL in 1995.
He started being involved with European FP projects within ESPRIT back in 1993, and acted as assistant coordinator and project manager for the MEGAFRAME (FP6) and SPADnet (FP7 ICT) EC R&D projects. He was also active with CHUV (Lausanne University Hospital) on a Swiss industry-academia CTI project devoted to the development of a new hand-held standalone tool for radiotracer- and fluorescence guided medical procedures, which was one of the three Swiss Medtech Award 2016 finalists. Dr. Bruschini is co-author of over 100 articles and workshop/conference presentations and one book; he was the co-recipient of 2012 European Photonics Innovation Award, is an IEEE Senior Member, and has launched one start-up to commercialise selected AQUA lab SPAD designs.

Samuel Burri (Male) is a post-doc with extensive experience in single-photon detectors and applications thereof, including firmware programming and PCB design. He has conceived in particular the SwissSPAD1 512×128 array, predecessor of SwissSPAD2.

List of relevant publications:
  • I. M., Antolovic, ..., and C. Bruschini. Optical-stack optimization for improved SPAD photon detection efficiency. SPIE OPTO, 10926-99 (2019).
  • A.C. Ulku, C. Bruschini, et al., A 512x512 SPAD image sensor with integrated gating for widefield FLIM. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 25(1), 6801212 (2019).
  • I.M. Antolovic, C. Bruschini, and E. Charbon. Dynamic range extension for photon counting arrays. Opt. Express 26 (17), 22234-22248 (2018).
  • C. Bruschini, H. Homulle and E. Charbon, Ten years of biophotonics single-photon SPAD imager applications: retrospective and outlook. SPIE BIOS 10069, San Francisco, CA, 2017. [Under review, Light: Science and Applications]
  • S. Burri, et al., Architecture and applications of a high resolution gated SPAD image sensor. Opt. Express 22(14), 17573-17589 (2014).

Grants

EPFL has a number of collaborations exploiting the SwissSPAD2 sensor array, most notably targeting phasor-based real-time FLIM (Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging) with UCLA (Xavier Michalet, Shimon Weiss).
It is also active in a number of projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), notably on the expansion of SPAD arrays to 3D architectures, to fully profit from the advanced electronic functionalities of modern silicon bottom tiers.
EPFL is also actively exploring III-V materials for an extension of the spectrum to NIR wavelengths and beyond.