ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences (www.icfo.eu) was founded in 2002 by the Government of Catalonia and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), both of which are members of its board of trustees along with the Cellex and Mir-Puig Foundations, philanthropic entities that have played a critical role in the advancement of the institute since 2007. Located in the Mediterranean Technology Park in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, the institute currently hosts 400 people, organized in 26 research groups in 60 state-of-the-art research laboratories. Research lines encompass diverse areas in which photonics plays a decisive role, with an emphasis on basic and applied themes relevant to medicine and biology, advanced imaging techniques, information technologies, a range of environmental sensors, tunable and ultra-fast lasers, quantum science, photovoltaics and the properties and applications of nano-materials such as graphene, among others. In addition to two consecutive Severo Ochoa accreditations of excellence, ICFOnians have been awarded 15 ICREA Professorships and 36 European Research Council grants. ICFO participates actively in the European Technological Platform Photonics21 and is very proactive in fostering entrepreneurial activities, spin-off creation, and creating collaborations and links between industry and ICFO researchers. To date, ICFO has helped create 7 start-up companies.

The SLN Lab (sln.icfo.eu) at ICFO will contribute to the project based on the expertise in a wide range of imaging techniques. The expertise of the SLN lab goes from the high and super resolution level: STED, Confocal (resonant and spectral), Raman, multiphoton (TPEF, SHG, THG) and light sheet (linear and nonlinear). The SLN focuses on performing R&D on high-end-microscopes. Thus all the available microscopes have been modified to give additional imaging capabilities not found in state-of-the-art commercial devices. Enhancements are introduced via i) novel laser sources, ii) the introduction of new nonlinear contrast agents, iii) the use of advance photonics instrumentation (deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, spatial light modulators), iv) incorporation of multimodal setups, v) design of new algorithms and data processing protocols for obtaining new information from the sample, etc.