Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a reputation for developing world-leading lasers, ranging from the NOVA Petawatt to today’s ultra-high-peak-power laser systems, such as the Advanced Radiographic Capability and the High-repetition-rate Advanced Petawatt Laser.
What these systems have in common is a foundational technology – chirped-pulse amplification (CPA), which enables the amplification of ultrashort laser pulses to the petawatt level, without destroying the amplifying material.
Donna Strickland, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and a former LLNL staff scientist, was recognized with the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics for this groundbreaking work. She reflected on her research in a recent Director’s Distinguished Lecturer Series (DDLS) address.
While noting that Strickland’s time at LLNL was short (1991-92), Director Bill Goldstein recognized that her impact on the Laboratory is enduring.
“CPA is an advance that is at once incredibly profound and at the same time incredibly elegant, and has made the path possible to intense lasers and all their unique applications, from medicine to scientific discovery,” he said. “At this Laboratory, it has been a critical ingredient in advanced laser systems, starting with the first petawatt, demonstrated here at the Lab, right up to this year’s delivery of an exceptional high-average-power petawatt system to the ELI Beamlines facility in Prague.”
Goldstein told the audience of his experience representing LLNL at the Nobel Prize ceremony, at Strickland’s invitation, noting that it was truly “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“It is very difficult to overstate the feeling of honor, being there to celebrate the advance that Donna made,” he said. “It was for me a huge feeling of being witness to history, not only for this prize but the fact that Donna is only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics. Let us hope that this is part of a growing trend.”
During her DDLS talk, “From Nonlinear Optics to High Intensity Laser Physics,” Strickland took the audience through decades of research in optics and lasers, culminating in her Nobel-winning work, published in 1985 when Strickland was a Ph.D. student at the University of Rochester. She shares the prize with Gérard Mourou, her Ph.D. supervisor and Arthur Ashkin.