The ÚFE Open Days are intended primarily for high school and college students interested in physics, chemistry, biology, and related fields, as well as their teachers, but also for anyone interested in science and modern technology.
This year, visitors can choose from three tour routes. Two of them will take visitors through the laboratories in the ÚFE main building in Prague 8 – Kobylisy, while the third will take visitors to our facility in Prague 6 – Lysolaje. The tours last approximately 90 minutes, and due to limited capacity, advance registration is required. The program and registration are available at dod.ufe.cz.
What you can look forward to in Kobylisy
The Kobylisy 1 tour will showcase research on fiber lasers and specialty optical fibers, the preparation and characterization of nanomaterials, and the Laboratory of the National Time and Frequency Standard. You’ll learn, for example, how infrared laser radiation is generated, what nanomaterials are used for, and how the Czech national time scale UTC(TP) – which contributes to the creation of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) – is established.
The Kobylisy 2 tour will take you to laboratories specializing in optical biosensors, nano-optics, and bioelectrodynamics. You’ll see how an ordinary glass slide can be turned into an extremely sensitive biosensor, how modern microscopy makes it possible to observe processes down to the level of individual molecules, and how scientists are studying the effects of electromagnetic radiation on biological systems.
See fiber optics with your own eyes in Lysolaje
The Lysolaje tour awaits you at the ÚFE branch in Prague 6. Visitors will get a firsthand look at the technology used to produce special optical fibers as thin as a human hair. They’ll learn how light travels through the fiber and how it can be generated directly within the optical fiber, and they’ll have the chance to experiment with some of these principles. In addition, on Thursday evening, there will be a special “Night Draw” event, during which visitors will also see the actual drawing of optical fiber with a precision of one-thousandth of a millimeter.
Registration
The ÚFE Open Days will take place on Thursday, November 5, and Friday, November 6, 2026. The morning sessions are primarily intended for schools, while the afternoon tours are also open to the general public.
On the registration page, you’ll find the complete schedule for each tour, current capacity, and the option to register online.
Come take a look inside our laboratories, meet our scientists, and get an up-close look at our research in photonics, optoelectronics, and electronics. We look forward to seeing you!
Czech Academy of Sciences Week
The ÚFE Open Days are part of the Czech Academy of Sciences Week, the largest science festival in the country. Its sixth edition will take place November 2–8, 2026, and will feature lectures, field trips, workshops, exhibitions, and other events for students and the general public throughout the Czech Republic. Admission to festival events is free. The program for the 2026 Czech Academy of Sciences Week will be published on Monday, October 5 (this year’s program), and reservations for events with limited capacity will open on Wednesday, October 7, at 2:00 p.m.
