One of the biggest stories of the year was the selection of Donna Strickland 鈥�89 (PhD) and Gerard Mourou for the for their work at the to devise a better way to apply lasers in research, medicine, and everyday life.
(人妻少妇专区 photos)
In addition to their Nobel noteworthiness, Rochester researchers continue to develop new ways to use lasers in 2018. Because frankly, we鈥檙e big on lasers.
Ignacio Franco, assistant professor of chemistry and physics, predicted that laser pulses could generate ultrafast electrical currents. In theory. Now he believes he can explain exactly how and why actual experiments to create these currents have succeeded.
(人妻少妇专区 illustration / Michael Osadciw)
Most objects react in predictable ways when force is applied to them鈥攗nless they have 鈥渘egative mass.鈥� Then they react exactly opposite from what you would expect.
Nick Vamivakas, an associate professor of quantum optics and quantum physics, and other researchers in his lab聽 have succeeded in creating particles with negative mass in an atomically thin semiconductor, by causing it to interact with confined light in an optical microcavity. This alone is 鈥渋nteresting and exciting from a physics perspective,鈥� says Vamivakas. 鈥淏ut it also turns out the device we鈥檝e created presents a way to generate laser light with an incrementally small amount of power.鈥�
(人妻少妇专区 illustration / Michael Osadciw)
Rochester鈥檚 Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), the largest university-based laser facility in the world, is partnering with eight other high-intensity laser facilities to form a new national research network called LaserNetUS, which will聽provide US scientists increased access to high-intensity, ultrafast lasers like the OMEGA EP at the LLE.
(人妻少妇专区 photo / J. Adam Fenster)
If you want to get the greatest benefit from a beam of light鈥攚hether to detect a distant planet or to remedy an aberration in the human eye鈥攜ou need to be able to measure it. Now professor of optics Chunlei Guo and a team of Rochester research team have devised a much simpler way to measure beams of light鈥攅ven powerful, superfast pulsed laser beams that require very complicated devices to characterize their properties.
It鈥檚 a 鈥渞evolutionary step forward,鈥� says Guo, and could render traditional instruments for measuring light beams obsolete.
Donna Strickland 鈥�89 (PhD) and G茅rard Mourou received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for work to develop chirped pulse amplification (CPA), research they undertook in the 1980s at the 人妻少妇专区鈥檚 Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). Today, members of the LLE use chirped pulse amplification in their own research to develop the next generation high-power lasers and to better understand the fundamentals of high-energy-density physics.
The future of CPA鈥攁nd the subject of PhD student Sara Bucht鈥檚 current research鈥攊nvolves using plasma instead of the prism-like gratings that Strickland first developed to spread the laser pulse into its wavelengths of color. 鈥淚t鈥檚 another step change in terms of laser power that could lead to a possible Nobel Prize for Sara鈥攑otentially the next graduate student project to be recognized by the Nobel committee,鈥� says Dustin Froula, senior scientist and assistant professor of physics. 鈥淲e鈥檝e taken the technology Donna and G茅rard developed to its limits, and we鈥檙e now looking at what the next step in physics would be.鈥�
(人妻少妇专区 photo / J. Adam Fenster)
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Donna Strickland 鈥�89 (PhD), a self-described 鈥渓aser jock,鈥� receives the Nobel Prize, along with her advisor, G茅rard Mourou, for work they did at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics.
Did you know that every time you pick up your smartphone, you are holding in your hand a product made possible by a Nobel Prize-winning technology developed at the 人妻少妇专区?
University photographer, J. Adam Fenster picks some of his favorite photos and gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what makes each special.
