Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 – Chirped Pulse Amplification

We are honoured to invite you for the next meeting of Koło Naukowe Optyki i Fotoniki UW. This time, our guest – dr hab. Katarzyna Krajewska from Faculty of Physics of University of Warsaw will familiarize us with concept of Chirped Pulse Amplification – technique awarded with Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018! After the talk we will continue the discussion in the nearby pub.

Speaker: dr hab. Katarzyna Krajewska – IFT UW

Abstract of the talk „Chirped Pulse Amplification based physics”:
Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 has been awarded for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics; one of them being the Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA). The technique has been invented by Donna Strickland and her then PhD advisor Gérard Mourou, and published in Strickland’s first research paper [1]. It has enabled a new generation of tabletop lasers that produce very brief pulses of intense light. Such light interacts with matter in nonlinear ways, which has opened new physical regimes of experimental and theoretical explorations. Specifically, high-order harmonic generation has been discovered, leading recently to the development of attoscience. Another spectacular application of the CPA-based systems is the ability to directly accelerate charged particles by means of laser light. These and other physical examples of strong laser light applications will be discussed, none of which would be possible without the invention of the CPA.

[1] D. Strickland and G. Mourou, Opt. Commun. 56, 219 (1985)

Where: Faculty of Physics UW, Room B.238
When: 12th of December 2018, 17.30
What: Talk about this year Nobel Prize in Physics – Chirped Pulse Amplification, delivered by dr hab. Katarzyna Krajewska