In January 2026, the cultural heritage research group – in collaboration with physicists, material scientists, conservators, and IT specialists – launched a challenging new five-year Personal Research Funding Team (PRG) project, led by Dr Signe Vahur. The main goal of the PRG3112 project is to develop a novel, portable, automated laser ablation sampling probe. This tool will enable minimally destructive stratigraphic and imaging analysis of artefacts directly on the object under ambient conditions. In the future, the probe could be coupled with various analytical devices (MS, Py-GC-MS, and FORS) and sampling containers.

We will keep you updated on the progress of this demanding and exciting project!

The research team remains largely the same as in our previous project.