Previously hosted by the Laser Research Center in Vilnius (2007), the FORTH Institute of Electronic Structure and Lasers in Heraklion (2008) and the ICFO Institute for Photonic Sciences in Barcelona (2009), STELLA is a unique, full immersion, "School for Training in Experiments with Lasers and Laser Applications", which sees a number of highly qualified experts to deliver technical training directly at research lab infrastructures.

Details of the program, teaching staff and how to apply are described in www.stella-school.eu.
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The school is devoted to Ph.D. and Post doc. students who are attending experimental research in the fields of laser physics, linear, nonlinear and quantum optics, as well as in those disciplines or research areas that rely upon an intensive use of laser technologies, such as medicine, biology, biochemistry, environmental protection, remote sensing, material processing, information technology, telecommunication, secure-data transmission, etc.

The program includes: Single-molecule Fluorescence Fluctuation Spectroscopy, Quantum Tomography and CHSH inequality, Measurement of intensity correlation function for pseudo-thermal light, High field physics and extreme nonlinear optics, Laser micro- and nanostructuring method using Bessel beams, Spatial light modulators: algorithms and testing of the SLM for real beams generation, Optical microscopy and its use for the characterization of soft materials, Laser speckle frequency correlations in random medium, Propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in transparent media: presentation of their physics effects and their modelling, Computational Optics in Extreme Nonlinear Regimes: From models to realistic, predictive simulations.

On behalf of the school steering committee Paolo Di Trapani and Ottavia Jedrkiewicz STELLA 2011 co-directors.