ULF-FORTH (Heraklion, Greece)
Ultraviolet Laser Facility, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas
The Ultrafast Laser Facility (ULF-FORTH) is a multi-disciplinary research laboratory focused 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.
Since 1990, ULF-FORTH has been very active in Transnational Access serving over 470 Users from the EU and Associated Member States. Offering over 3500 days of beam time and around 340 research projects it hosts circa 50 external Users per year. It has played a pivotal role in establishing the LIMANS cluster of laser facilities, as well as in the development of the LASERNET network and Laserlab-Europe. The host institution (Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser-IESL) also participates in several other access providing European Infrastructures, such as NEP (NFFA-Europe PILOT) and RIANA (Research Infrastructure Access in Nanoscience & Nanotechnology), as well as EUSMI, the ESFRI initiative ELI, IPERION-CH (now known as IRIS) and PhotonHUB Europe.
Website: www.iesl.forth.gr/en/laserlab-europe
Contact: Dr. P. Loukakos

Research highlights
Materials Sciences
Project ID 2658: In this project, it is shown that good quality surfaces revealing a high uniformity and absence of cracks, can be obtained by means of ultrashort PLD technique. The most worth mentioning aspect is the strong film adhesion to the substrate although have been deposited at room temperature. These results confirm, once again, that PLD technique in ps and sub-ps domains is a reliable and reproducible method for the fabrication of thick boron coatings suitable for neutron detection technology [Materials, 16 1512 (2023)].
Advanced imaging and diagnostic techniques for Art & Cultural Heritage
Project ID 2663: In this work a new reflectance set-up configuration extended the applicability of the photoacoustic (PA) imaging technique to art objects of any thickness and form. The study uncovers the advanced potential of the PA approach for revealing hidden features, and is safely applicable for future real-case studies [Imaging 8, 235 (2022)].
Plasma Physics & applications to astrophysics and planetology
Project ID 2407: Carbon-Based Nanostructured Film Materials for High-Intense Laser-Matter Interaction Experiments [Adv. Eng. Mater. 2019, 1800777 (2018)].
Condensed Matter Physics, Ultrafast Nanoscience
Project ID 2825: The project introduces a novel approach for the functionalization of vertical graphene nanowalls (VGNWs) through pulsed UV laser irradiation. The physicochemical properties of the VGNWs are significantly influenced by the pulse fluence and the number of applied pulses. Notably, increasing the number of pulses and fluence leads to a significant reduction in the defect density within the VGNWs [J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 15, 3779 (2024)].
Project ID 2258: In this work laser-based surface patterning of rutile TiO2 monocrystals with (001) and (100) surface orientation is investigated following irradiation by a fs KrF laser with variable fluences and multiple linearly polarized beams. The obtained morphological maps of the characteristic surface morphologies revealed the significant influence of the crystalline anisotropy on the laser-surface interaction process. [J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35, 2600 (2018)].
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Project ID 2697: We report chirality detection of structural isomers in a gas phase mixture using nanosecond photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD). Combining pulsed molecular beams with high-resolution resonance enhanced multi-photon ionization (REMPI) allows specific isolated transitions belonging to distinct components in the mixture to be targeted [Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 24, 2758 (2022)].
Expertise
Scientists at ULF-FORTH produce internationally recognized cutting-edge work in diverse fields, such as Strong Field Physics, including Attosecond Science, Quantum light technologies and Ultrashort Non-linear Interactions and Sources, Quantum magnetometry; Dynamic Processes in Atoms, Molecules and Materials including Polarization Spectroscopy, BEC & Matter Waves, Space Optics, Chemical dynamics, Cluster Physics & chemistry; Theoretical Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics including Theoretical Quantum Optics & Technology, Theoretical Plasma Physics, Theoretical & Computational Chemistry; Photon Science Applications including Photonic Materials & Devices, Nonlinear Lithography, Ultra-fast Laser Micro- & Nano- Processing, Diagnostic Methodologies & Instrumentation including ultrafast nonlinear laser-matter probing, analytical spectroscopy and optosensing techniques, Photonics for Cultural Heritage, Biophotonics.
A few highlights which have emerged as results of research at our facility are:
- Generation of optical Schrödinger “cat” states in intense laser-matter interactions, M. Lewenstein et al., Nature Physics 17, 1104 (2021)
- Vacancy-Driven Noncubic Local Structure and Magnetic Anisotropy Tailoring in FexO−Fe3−δO4 Nanocrystals, A. Lappas et al., Phys. Rev. X 9, 041044 (2019)
- Hypersonic Bose–Einstein condensates in accelerator rings, S. Pandey et al., Nature 570, 205 (2019)
- Additive Manufacturing: Applications and Directions in Photonics and Optoelectronics., A. Camposeo et al., Advanced Optical Materials 7, 1800419 (2019)
- Observation of extremely efficient terahertz generation from mid-infrared two-color laser filaments, A. D. Koulouklidis et al., Nature Communications, 11, 292, (2020)
As a consequence of its ongoing high quality research output, ULF-FORTH has been designated by several EC technical reviews, as well as independent evaluation panels, as an “excellent scientific environment for research work”. ULF-FORTH is an integral part of IESL-FORTH considered a leading Institute in the Greek Research Community in the domain of Laser physics.
Services for industry
…
Equipment offered to external users

- Several Ti:Sa lasers with pulse duration down to >20 fs and energy <500 mJ/pulse at 10 Hz and 50 Hz. The Attosecond Science unit provides to Users energetic isolated or trains of attosecond pulses. The beam line makes available non-linear XUV autocorrelators and XUV-pump-XUV-probe delay lines as well as IR-XUV cross-correlators and delay lines. Ion mass, photoelectron and ion microscope with 1μm resolution, XUV flat field spectrometer and other diagnostic facilities are also offered. Tunable XUV radiation is in the range (55-115 nm; 105-1011 photons/pulse per harmonic on target). Secondary ultra-short sources in the UV-NIR as well as an intense THz source (0.1-10 THz, with peak power allowing nonlinear studies) are also available;
- A high-intensity excimer-based laser at 248 nm, with variable pulse duration (150 fs, 450 fs or 5 ps) and focused intensities <1016 W/cm2;
- A complete range of tuneable Vis-UV-VUV lasers (205–1800 nm; 5-20 ns), a White-light (500-2000nm, 100MHz rep. rate, few μJ/pulse, <1ns) laser and CW diode lasers (402nm, 795nm, 1300-1340nm, linewidth <1MHz), all coupled to experimental workstations for atomic and molecular spectroscopy and chemical dynamics;
- Several compact fs and ps laser systems in workstations for micro/nano processing and photochemical modification;
- A dye+OPA NIR system (Sirah Lasertechnik) tunable from 400 nm to 4000 nm, to be used in chemical dynamics and other experiments where laser excitation in the IR region is necessary.
- An Yb-doped fiber laser (240 fs) with a fundamental emission wavelength of 1030 nm and the capability of second harmonic generation at 515 nm. Repetition rate is adjustable from 5 kHz to 20 MHz and even single shot pulse emission possibility.
Large-area processing of optoelectronics devices in controlled atmosphere; pump-probe (UV-VIS-nIR-white light, fs-ps) time-resolved spectroscopy; 3D printing applications as in micro-optical components, microfluidic devices; 3D scaffolds for cell growth, micro/nanosensors, nanophotonics and metamaterials; Biophotonics stations integrating Live cell Microscopy + Non-linear Imaging + Cellular manipulation + Bioprinting; Nonlinear Bio-medical imaging and nanosurgery; a range of confocal microscopy stations for live cell imaging; multispectral Fluorescence Molecular Tomography for spatio-temporal gene expression; Micro-Absorption/Photoluminenscence spectroscopy (4K-380K); Optical fibre components manufacturing; Photoacoustic imaging and monitoring among others. Additional characterization facilities include SQUID Magnetometry (DC & AC f= 0.01 – 1000 Hz, <7 Tesla, (1.9–400 K and 300-800K), XRD, TEM/SEM among others.