Imec, Ghent University, Medtronic and other CARDIS project partners, have developed a prototype medical device based on silicon photonics for the screening of arterial stiffness and for the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as arterial stenosis and heart failure.

In the Horizon 2020 project a previous prototype was developed: a mobile, low-cost and point-of-care screening device for CVD. The operating principle is Laser Doppler Vibrometry (LDV), in which a very low-power laser is directed towards the skin overlying an artery. The skin’s vibration amplitude and frequency, resulting from the heart beat, are extracted from the Doppler shift of the reflected beam. At the heart of the system is a silicon photonics chip containing the optical functionality of the multi-beam LDV device.

A clinical feasibility study with 100 patients was successfully completed by INSERM at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, France. Therefore, a study on a larger group of patients over a longer period of time is envisioned

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