Q: Special (greek, math, subscripts etc.) symbols in labels?

You can use TeX notation in any text objects (including axis and contour labels(!), but excluding tickmarks (click here for more information)), e.g.

 text(1,1,'\xi\rightarrow\infty');
 xlabel('\alpha');
 title('\Sigma_{0}^{1}');
See the String property of Text object for a list of symbols, including Greek letters.