Cultural Heritage and Historical Preservation

Using photon-based techniques for the diagnostics and conservation of artworks and antiquities, from non-destructive compositional or structural analysis to laser cleaning.

CLF (Oxfordshire, UK)

The CLF offers access to five unique laser facilities for multi-disciplinary research. VULCAN operates two target areas: a high energy 1 PW capability and a synchronised 100 TW & 2 kJ/ns capability, both with very flexible configurations for research in high energy density science. GEMINI offers a unique synchronised dual beam capability with 0.5 PW beams operating at one shot every 20 seconds, focussing on plasma accelerators and the generation and application of secondary sources. ARTEMIS has three beamlines utilising HHG, at 1 kHz/800 nm/200 eV and 100 kHz/1700 nm/1 keV (due online shortly), with a wide suite of end stations for pump-probe experiments in ultrafast XUV science. ULTRA is an ultrafast pump-probe laser spectroscopy facility, combining laser, detector and sample manipulation technology to probe ultrafast molecular dynamics. OCTOPUS: a suite of imaging and laser trapping capabilities, such as super-resolution (including cryogenic), confocal, and light sheet microscopy, single molecule imaging/tracking, and focused ion beam SEM.

CLL (Coimbra, Portugal)

CLL aims to promote and support the use of lasers in the study of the interactions between radiation and matter at the molecular level. Specialized on photochemical, photophysical and spectroscopic studies, from the infrared through the ultraviolet, covering timescales from femtoseconds at room temperatures to ultra slow processes at cryogenic temperatures.

CLPU (Salamanca, Spain)

CLPU operates VEGA, a multi Terawatt laser system composed by three independent and synchronised 30 fs long Ti:Sa based-laser pulses: VEGA-3 of 1 PW (at 1Hz), VEGA- 2 of 200 TW and VEGA-1 of 20 TW (both up to 10 Hz). Besides its architecture, the uniqueness of VEGA is that it is a petawatt-class laser system of high-repetition rate.

CUSBO (Milan, Italy)

CUSBO covers a broad range of activities of interdisciplinary nature. Several unique state of the art sources provide few-cycle light pulses, either widely-tunable or of high peak power seeding attosecond beamlines, for pump-probe experiments. Advanced laser workstations mostly based on time-resolved measurements are also applied to non-invasive clinical diagnostics, biological imaging, and non-destructive analysis of food and cultural heritage.

LLAMS (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

LLAMS develops new techniques and tools, including ultra-precise spectroscopy, to study the interaction of (laser) light and matter. Looking at systems ranging from atoms and molecules to living cells and tissues, the focus is on advancing understanding of both molecular physics and living systems.

ULF-FORTH (Heraklion, Greece)

The Ultraviolet Laser Facility (ULF-FORTH) is a multi-disciplinary laboratory dedicated to laser-based science. It is the major laser research facility in Greece. ULF-FORTH combines state-of-the-art experimental facilities with a rich spectrum of research activities and expertise including Atomic and Optical physics, Molecular physics and Chemical dynamics, laser-materials interactions, laser applications and techniques in Biomedicine and in Cultural Heritage.