Partners - LENS

Description: LENS was established in 1991 as an advanced research institution offering Access to the
European scientific community. LENS is a truly interdisciplinary research laboratory, employing the laser
light for investigating matter under different aspects: from atomic physics to photochemistry, biochemistry
and biophysics, from material science to photonics, from art restoration and preservation to solid and liquid
state physics. Different state-of-the-art experimental techniques are applied and made available to the Users:
different set-ups for ultrafast spectroscopy; ultracold atom facilities; ultra-high pressure set-up; molecular
beam machines; SNOM facilty; biophysics and biophotonics laboratory. Nowadays the Laboratory consists
of about 25 scientific permanent staff members and 8 administrative and technical collaborators; about 35
post doctoral fellows and PhD students complete the LENS team.

Excellence: The intense and widespread in-house research activity is aimed to maintain its level of
international excellence, taking advantage of the uncommon concentration of diverse instrumental
apparatuses and of the wide spectrum of competences available at LENS. Relevant achievements were
obtained in the fields of atomic physics and ultracold atoms, of light propagation in complex systems, of the
physics of liquids, of very high pressure physics and chemistry, of molecular dynamics and ultrafast
molecular processes, of non-linear imaging of biological systems. In a recent nation-wide evaluation of the
Italian research institutes, LENS scored the first place among the small size research institutions both for
Physics and Chemistry.

Main tasks: Participant in networking activities; Joint Research Activities; Infrastructure providing Access

Previous experience: Since the third European Union Framework Program, LENS has been providing Access
to its research facilities to European researchers. Within the 6th Framework Program this activity has been carried out through the LASERLAB-EUROPE Consortium. LENS has been European training site since the
5th FP; several Marie Curie programmes are presently active at the lab.

>>> Access facility LENS

Address:
Laboratorio Europeo di Spettroscopie Non Lineari
Via Nello Carrara 1
I-50019 Sesto-Fiorentino (FIRENZE)
Italy

Phone +39 055 4572485

www.lens.unifi.it