Generating High-Intensity, Ultrashort Optical Pulses with 2018 Nobel Laureate

Thu 8 Dec 2022 5:30pm6:30pm

Venue

Lecture theatre S05_2.04,
Griffith University, South Bank campus,
South Bank, 4101

Speaker: Professor Donna Strickland
Affiliation: University of Waterloo, Canada

Abstract

With the invention of lasers, the intensity of a light wave was increased by orders of magnitude over what had been achieved with a light bulb or sunlight. This much higher intensity led to new phenomena being observed, such as violet light coming out when red light went into the material. After GĂ©rard Mourou and Donna Strickland developed chirped pulse amplification, also known as CPA, the intensity again increased by more than a factor of 1,000 and it once again made new types of interactions possible between light and matter. Consequently, developing a laser that could deliver short pulses of light that knocked the electrons off their atoms.

This new understanding of laser-matter interactions led to the development of new machining techniques that are used in laser eye surgery or micromachining of glass used in cell phones.