The NLOLA laboratory is equipped with several state-of-the-art laser sources, providing nanosecond, picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses at different operational wavelengths, from UV to IR. In addition, there is all the appropriate infrastructure for light spectral analysis and measurement, including appropriate light detectors, dispersive elements and a plethora of opto-mechanical components allowing the control of light polarization and intensity, beam shaping, etc.  

Briefly, the following laser systems and instrumentation are listed below:

  • a 4 ns Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with a gaussian beam profile (SPECTRA-PHYSICS INDY) operating at 1064 nm, at a repetition rate 1-10 Hz, equipped with nonlinear crystals for operation at 532 nm (SHG) and 355 nm (THG)
  • a 4 ns Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with a top-hat beam profile (EKSPLA) operating at 1064 nm, at a repetition rate 1-10 Hz, equipped with nonlinear crystals for operation at 532 nm (SHG), 355 nm (THG) and 266 nm (4th harmonic)
  • a mode-locked 35ps Nd:YAG laser (QUANTEL), operating at 1064 nm, at a repetition rate 1-10 Hz, equipped with nonlinear crystal for operation at 532 nm (SHG)
  • an optical parametric oscillator (OPO), pumped by a 4 ns Nd:YAG laser (EKSPLA), operating at a repetition rate 1-10 Hz, from 215-2300 nm
  • a 30 mW He-Ne laser (Melles Griot)
  • a 10Hz CPA ultrafast Ti:Sapphire amplifier (AMPLITUDE TECHNOLOGIES) delivering 35 fs laser pulses, operating at 800/400 nm delivering pulses of energy up to 12/4 mJ.
  • a Mantis (COHERENT) laser oscillator, operating at 80 MHz at 800 nm
  • an Optical Parametric Amplifier (OPA), operating from 200-3000 nm
  • various laser power/energy meters
  • a variety of high-power laser optical components for the spectral regions from UV to IR: polarization control elements, lenses, prisms, mirrors, interference and neutral density filters, beam-splitters, quartz cells, fiber bundles, etc.
  • different monochromators/spectrographs (JOBIN-YVON, two HR460 and one HR320) equipped with various holographic optical gratings (2400, 1800, 1200, 600 and 150 lines/mm) covering the spectral region 180-1100 nm
  • one VUV spectrograph (McPherson 234/302)
  • two spectrographs (AvaSpec-2048-USB2, AvaSpec-ULS4096CL-EVO)
  • three ICCD cameras (ANDOR, DH734, DH712 and DO420-BN)
  • several photomultipliers
  • three DSO LeCROY oscilloscopes (LT224, 200 MHz, 051A, 500 MHz ) and an HP (54615B, 500 MHz)
  • several Boxcar integrators (SRS) and Lock-in amplifiers (STANFORD RESEARCH)
  • voltage/current amplifiers and preamplifiers (SRS)
  • digital delay/pulse generator (SRS, DG535)
  • vacuum equipment (rotary/diffusion/turbo pumps, vacuum chambers, pressure gauges, mass flow controllers, etc.)
  • opto-mechanical equipment (stepper motors, linear and rotation states, etc.)
  • different home-made second order auto-correlators (scanning and single shot)
  • a dual beam UV-Vis/NIR (190-2700 nm) spectrophotometer (JASCO VT-670),
  • an integration sphere (200-2500 nm) for diffuse reflectance measurements (for solid samples in transmission and reflection geometry, and powder samples)
  • accessory of spectrophotometer for thickness measurements
  • a stylus profilometer (BRUKER Dektak XT)