LMU Munich & iNSyT Solutions – iNSyT ONE
LMU Munich and iNSyT Solutions Secure EIC Transition Funding to Redefine Quality Control for Quantum Dots and Nanomaterials.
Nanomaterials quality control is becoming essential for industries using quantum dots, from advanced displays to photovoltaics and biomedical applications. With EIC Transition funding, LMU Munich and iNSyT Solutions are advancing iNSyT ONE, a next-generation microscope designed to deliver fast, single-particle analysis for industrial nanomaterial production.
The Problem
Nanomaterials such as quantum dots power everything from high-end displays to solar cells and mRNA vaccines, yet what looks uniform is in fact a heterogeneous population of particles whose tiny variations can ruin entire production batches.
Today’s industrial quality control relies on bulk techniques that collapse billions of data points into a single misleading average, take up to two days to deliver a result and never connect a particle’s structure to its optical performance, leaving the sector with a significant share of off-spec batches and the associated material, energy and time waste.
The Project
Working from LMU Munich’s Nanoinstitute, the iNSyT team has developed iNSyT ONE, a new generation microscope that delivers real-time, high-throughput single-particle quality control of nanomaterials in solution. By combining two complementary channels into one compact instrument, it analyses more than 10,000 nanoparticles per run in under 20 minutes — replacing a two-day, multi-instrument workflow with a single fast, label-free assay.
With strategic support from Evolution Europe, LMU Munich submitted a full EIC Transition application to take iNSyT ONE from a lab-validated prototype (TRL 4) to an industrially piloted system (TRL 6), with the future spin-off iNSyT Solutions taking over coordination mid-project to lead industrial pilots and deliver a manufacturing-ready, CE-pre-compliant system.
The Impact
iNSyT ONE creates a new instrumentation category: industrial single-particle quality control for nanomaterials, which shifts the value chain from slow, end-of-line testing to fast, in-process assurance.
Beyond its beach-head in quantum-dot displays, the platform extends across image sensors, solid-state lighting, printable photonics, biomedical applications and emerging photovoltaics, addressing a quantum-dot market projected to grow at roughly 18% CAGR through 2034. By anchoring next-generation nano-metrology in Europe, it strengthens EU sovereignty in critical sectors and supports the shift toward cadmium-free chemistries.
The Result
Thanks to a highly competitive EIC Transition application, LMU Munich and the iNSyT team were awarded a €2,446,942 grant from the European Innovation Council to fully fund the 36-month project.
The grant covers multimodal hardware and software integration at LMU, two industrial pilot deployments, a manufacturing-ready second-generation system and CE pre-compliance work needed to prepare a post-project growth round, positioning iNSyT ONE to set a new standard for nanomaterial quality control and to keep one of Europe’s most strategic deep-tech metrology platforms anchored in the EU.
