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HILIGHT Detector Achieves Sub-Nanosecond Gating and Initial Imaging

The HILIGHT Project has reached a new stage in detector development, with recent tests confirming both advanced temporal performance and successful integration into a microscopy platform.

Recent experimental work has demonstrated two key advances in the performance and readiness of the HILIGHT detector. First, the minimum achievable gating window width has now been fully characterised, with measured values below 1 ns. This level of temporal control is essential for time-resolved measurements and supports the detector’s use in fluorescence lifetime imaging.

Second, the HILIGHT detector has been successfully coupled to a microscope, enabling the acquisition of the first images from a Convallaria majalis sample. At this stage, the images represent standard photon count measurements rather than fluorescence intensity or lifetime images. These measurements serve to validate optical coupling, alignment, and detector operation within a microscopy environment.

Together, these results mark an important step toward full system-level FLIM measurements. The first fluorescence lifetime images using the HILIGHT detector are expected as integration and testing progress.

We look forward to sharing further updates as detector validation and system integration continue across the HILIGHT consortium.

HILIGHT Project Update – First Laser Fabricated

We are pleased to announce another major milestone for the HILIGHT Project.


The first custom 905 nm multi-section laser has now been successfully fabricated and will undergo initial characterisation at III-V Lab in the coming weeks.

This laser has been purpose-built for two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging (2ph-FLIM) and represents a key step toward achieving faster, higher-precision excitation which is essential for the HILIGHT’s goal of advancing digital, time-resolved microscopy for clinical and research use.

Following characterisation, the laser modules will be delivered to project partners for integration with the detectors fabricated at FBK and system testing at Brunel University London and VIVASCOPE.

This achievement marks another major step forward in the development of the complete HILIGHT confocal FLIM platform.

We look forward to sharing further progress as integration and system validation continue across the consortium.

Our version of a jeweler’s box – each tiny gold chip is a laser.

#HorizonEurope #HiLIGHT #III-VLab #CSEM #BUL #FBK #Vivasvope

HILIGHT Project Update – First Detector Fabricated and Under Test

We are pleased to report a major step forward for the HILIGHT project. The first HILIGHT detector has been fabricated at FBK, and is now undergoing initial testing with our colleagues Alessandro and Gianpietro.

This detector introduces a new approach to fluorescence lifetime imaging by delivering purely digital measurements at unprecedented speed. This capability is central to the HILIGHT confocal microscopy system, which aims to deliver faster, more accurate imaging for clinical and research applications.

The detectors will be delivered to Brunel University and VIVASCOPE, where they will be combined with laser sources designed by CSEM and fabricated by III-V Lab.

This integration marks the next phase of system development and testing. We will continue to share progress updates, publications, and upcoming events as the project advances.

#HorizonEurope #HiLIGHT #III-VLab #CSEM #BUL #FBK #Vivasvope

Innovating biophotonics… in beautiful Trento

8-9 April, HILIGHT’s third General Assembly meeting took place in the lovely city of Trento, Italy.

☑  Our consortium partners meet for collaborative discussions, thoroughly reviewing the project’s progress, addressing ongoing challenges, and thoughtfully outlining the strategy for the next phases.


A special thank you to our hosts, Leonardo Gasparini and Alessandro Tontini for organising the meeting and a delightful dinner at a local restaurant in the heart of Trento

🚀 We are eagerly looking forward to the next phase of the project, where we aim to test the first lasers for the future HiLIGHT microscope

#HorizonEurope #HiLIGHT #III-VLab #CSEM #BUL #FBK #Vivasvope

Kick-off time!

The EU HORIZON announced the success of our grant application in the summer of 2023. The HILIGHT consortium was thus formed in the autumn, and funding started on 1st December 2023. After the partners organized their work and started to deliver on preparatory tasks, on 17-18 January, we met in person for the first time for the HILIGHT kick-off meeting.

It was only appropriate for III-V Lab, the project coordinator, to host this meeting at their Palaiseau (France) site near Paris. Each partner presented their work packages, and we agreed on organizational structure, future meetings, and first steps, the usual things. It was also a great occasion to get to know each other as some of us never met in person but only through tens of meetings and the many emails exchanged during the pre-award stage. Also, it was great to tour the III-V Lab facilities, a major player in the fabrication and innovation of III/V semiconductors. We visited their impressive facilities with their large clean rooms, the reactors for epitaxial growth, and their people.

An exciting time for all of us, and we are looking forward to the first results we will share with the community. Watch this space.

HILIGHT branding – explainer

Logos and branding are certainly not the most important aspects of a project but they do create a sense of community and common goals and ultimately capture what a collaborative project is meant to achieve. Thus, let us explain our branding.

First of all, the name of the consortium: HILIGHT. Not a proper acronym as we have to borrow letters from the title of our grant proposal but a name that works. Its origin can be tracked from this title contraction:

Highly Integrated Versatile Laser Source enabling two-photon excitation in digital diagnostics and biomedical research.

You can also think about us developing semiconductor technologies for ultra-fast diagnostics, trying to highlight where cancer is in a tissue. Then you are a spelling error away from our name.


The font (impact) and the heavy inclination express our commitment for fast development of innovative semiconductor technologies to disrupt healthcare applications. The colour choice is to recall the near-infrared spectrum we are using to image samples.


We also wanted to integrate some graphical elements explaining our approach. The first step was to work in the dot of the first “i”. The dashed lines refer to our capabilities to shape bursts of high power high frequencies laser pulses to shape optimal excitation conditions for tissue imaging. The “decaying spectrum” illustrates our target to generate tissue contrast using fluorescence and quantifying fluorescence lifetimes.

When iterating the design, we decided to squeeze the HI of HILIGHT into a single element, after all… a highly integrated laser might require a highly integrated logo, doesn’t it?

All other versions of logos you will find in our website and documentation are based on those basic concepts.

Revolutionizing Healthcare: HILIGHT Consortium Receives €3.2 Million to Develop Instantaneous Digital Histopathology Technologies

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A patient lies in the operating theatre surrounded by a medical team.  Armed with their experience, a surgeon is excising a tumour and decides how much tissue around the tumour should be removed. Be too conservative, and the probability of tumour reoccurrence increases; be too radical, and the patient’s quality of life might be compromised. The analysis of tissues to determine the type and precise location of disease (a medical discipline called histopathology) is critical to ensuring patients live longer and healthier lives. However, the current time constraints associated with obtaining actionable results often impede its use at the point of care and in intraoperative settings, leading to delayed decisions for disease management.

While advanced optical imaging technologies for real-time histology exist, their widespread adoption faces obstacles such as prohibitive costs, large equipment sizes, and specialized expertise required for deep-tissue analysis. The European HILIGHT consortium, consisting of leading academic and industrial innovators from the III-V Lab (France), Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK, Italy), the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM, Switzerland), VivaScope GmbH (Germany), and Brunel University London (United Kingdom), is set to address these challenges head-on.

HILIGHT has secured a substantial grant of €3.2 million (£2.8 million) from the EU HORIZON to bring real-time and cost-effective digital diagnostic tools to the forefront of healthcare. “We are thrilled to announce the consortium’s successful funding bid to innovate, develop, and deploy groundbreaking laser and detection technologies dedicated to instantaneous digital histopathology and optical biopsies,” says Dr Alessandro Esposito, a lecturer at Brunel University London and lead of the quantitative cancer biology group. “Our long-term ambition is to create technologies that ‘see’ cancer and other pathologies affecting human tissues, implementing affordable digital solutions for a sustainable future in healthcare. Driven by our interdisciplinary expertise, our role in Brunel is to redesign technology workflows and biochemical assays, ensuring that the sophisticated innovations developed are field-deployable in real-case scenarios for both diagnostics and biomedical research”

This venture builds on the success of prior collaborations among the consortium partners, providing a strong foundation for seamless interaction and the effective implementation of the proposed work plan. Beyond advancing biomedical imaging technologies, the HILIGHT consortium is committed to contributing to European resilience and competitiveness in the manufacturing of solid-state technologies.