Femtosecond lasers have become an indispensable part of research. They can be used to study ultrafast processes in materials and molecules, and their potential for applications in fields as diverse as optical telecommunications, quantum technologies or optical spectroscopy is great. However, these lasers are traditionally relatively large and quite expensive. A consortium consisting of Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Germany, the University of Twente in the Netherlands, Aalto University in Finland, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the company LIGENTEC SA from Switzerland and EurA from Germany, has set out to provide the same functionality in a much smaller and less expensive way: on a microchip.