Dr. Donna Strickland

First, there was the sun. Then humans invented lightbulbs, and then lasers. In 2018, Dr. Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in Physics for her success in generating high-intensity, ultrashort optical pulses. According to the Nobel Prize website, “these sharp beams of laser light have given us new opportunities for deepening our knowledge about the world and how we can shape it.”

In this talk, Dr. Strickland explores how light interacts with matter and sheds light on “chirped pulse amplification.” With the invention of lasers, the intensity of a light wave was increased exponentially over a light bulb or sunlight. After Strickland and Gérard Mourou developed chirped pulse amplification in 1985, the intensity again increased by more than a factor of 1,000. That made new types of interactions possible between light and matter. The new laser 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 cellphones.

Date: November 25, 2019
Time: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. 
Cost: $19.95
Location: Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, UBC
Registration & more information: Here