The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has selected in 2006 a proposal based on ultra-intense laser fields with intensities reaching up to 10-10 W cm called 'ELI' for Extreme Light Infrastructure. The construction of a large-scale laser-centred, distributed pan-European research infrastructure, involving beyond the state-of-the-art ultra-short and ultra-intense laser technologies, received the approval for funding in 2011-2012. The three pillars of the ELI facility are being built in Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. The Romanian pillar is ELI-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP). The new facility is intended to serve a broad national, European and International science community. Its mission covers scientific research at the frontier of knowledge involving two domains. The first one is laser-driven experiments related to nuclear physics, strong-field quantum electrodynamics and associated vacuum effects. The second is based on a Compton backscattering high-brilliance and intense low-energy gamma beam (<20 MeV), a marriage of laser and accelerator technology which will allow us to investigate nuclear structure and reactions as well as nuclear astrophysics with unprecedented resolution and accuracy. In addition to fundamental themes, a large number of applications with significant societal impact are being developed. The ELI-NP research centre will be located in Măgurele near Bucharest, Romania. The project is implemented by 'Horia Hulubei' National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH). The project started in January 2013 and the new facility will be fully operational by the end of 2019. After a short introduction to multi-PW lasers and multi-MeV brilliant gamma beam scientific and technical description of the future ELI-NP facility as well as the present status of its implementation of ELI-NP, will be presented. The science and examples of societal applications at reach with these electromagnetic probes with much improved performances provided at this new facility will be discussed with a special focus on day-one experiments and associated novel instrumentation.

The development of new photonic materials is a key step toward improvement of existing optical devices and for the preparation of a new generation of systems. Therefore synthesis of photonic hybrid materials with a thorough understanding and control of the microstructure-to-properties relationships is crucial. In this perspective, a new preparation method based on fast gelation reactions using simple dispersion of dyes without strong covalent bonding between dye and matrix has been developed. This new sol-gel method is demonstrated through synthesis of monolithic siloxane-based hybrid materials highly doped by various platinum(II) acetylide derivatives. Concentrations of the chromophores as high as 400 mM were obtained and resulted in unprecedented optical power limiting (OPL) performance at 532 nm of the surface-polished solids. Static and time-resolved photoluminescence of the prepared hybrid materials were consistent with both OPL data and previous studies of similar Pt(II) compounds in solution. The impacts of the microstructure and the chemical composition of the matrix on the spectroscopic properties, are discussed.

The positron lifetimes in a source have been measured. The fraction of positrons annihilated in salt and in the Kapton supporting foils has been determined as a function of the atomic number Z of the sample. All of the experimental results have been compared with calculated values obtained from a computer program based on a Monte Carlo algorithm. An algorithm has been proposed for the determination of the source correction in lifetime spectra in positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy.