World of Photonics Congress welcomes the Nobel Prize winner in Physics 2018

Prof. Arthur Ashkin, Prof. Gérard Mourou and Prof. Donna Strickland: The winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018. Strickland und Mourou received the award “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses”. Prof. Gérard Mourou will take part at this year’s World of Photonics Congress and hold a Nobel Prize Plenary Talk about his research on Monday, June 24, 2019.

© École Polytechnique – J. Barande

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 was awarded to Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland. Their inventions have revolutionized laser physics. Extremely small objects and incredibly rapid processes are now being seen in a new light. Advanced precision instruments are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications

Strickland and Mourou’s newly invented technique, called chirped pulse amplification (CPA), soon became standard for subsequent high-intensity lasers. Its uses include the millions of corrective eye surgeries that are conducted every year using the sharpest of laser beams.
The innumerable areas of application have not yet been completely explored. However, even now these celebrated inventions allow us to rummage around in the microworld in the best spirit of Alfred Nobel—for the greatest benefit to humankind.

Prof. Gérard Mourou will hold his Nobel Prize Plenary with the title “A Passion for Extreme Light” on Monday, June 24th from 18:00 – 19:00.

Prof. Gérard Mourou was the founding Director of the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan. For forty years, he has pioneered the field of ultrafast lasers and their applications in scientific, engineering and medical disciplines. He is also the initiator of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) in Europe.

He is a fellow of The Optical Society and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Prof. Mourou is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Currently he is Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the University of Michigan and the Ecole polytechnique in Palaiseau France.

He has been the recipient of the Wood Prize from The Optical Society, the Edgerton Prize from the SPIE, the Sarnoff Prize from the IEEE, the 2004 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award, 2005 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, the 2009 Charles Hard Townes Award, te 2016 Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis and the 2016 Frederic Ives Meda./Jarus Quinn Prize.