![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/nobel2.jpg\")
\u201cG\u00e9rard Mourou and Donna Strickland invented a laser technique that transformed laser technology and continues to have lasting impacts on society,\u201d says Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences.<\/p>\n
Strickland has been getting used to the limelight. And as she told the British publication the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>, she doesn\u2019t like too much focus to be placed on her gender. The fact that she is only the third woman ever to receive the physics Nobel\u2014joining Curie, who received the prize for research on radiation, and Maria Goeppert-Mayer, who won in 1963 for discoveries concerning nuclear structure\u2014is much less interesting to her than the science that earned her the award.<\/p>\n But many observers point out that, prior to winning the Nobel, Strickland was under-recognized, given the significance of her contribution.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope and believe the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics this year begins a trend where more women are recognized for their seminal contributions in science and engineering,\u201d says Heinzelman.<\/p>\n Strickland received her undergraduate degree at McMaster University in Ontario, and came to Rochester for her graduate degree because of the University\u2019s reputation as one of the top schools globally for studying optics and light. One day on campus, a fellow graduate student mentioned the lab of G\u00e9rard Mourou.<\/p>\n \u201cI told someone at the Institute of Optics that I wanted to study lasers, and he said, \u2018I know just the guy you\u2019ll want to work with,\u2019 \u201d Strickland recounts. As she told the University of Waterloo, when she walked into Mourou\u2019s lab at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, \u201cit was full of these red and green lasers. I just said, \u2018Oh my God. It\u2019s like working around a Christmas tree all the time. How fabulous is that?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n As laser science grew as a discipline in the 1980s, researchers were incrementally increasing the intensity of laser pulses, resulting in damage to the amplifying material. Mourou had come up with an idea to clear the hurdle by perfecting the technique known as chirped pulse amplification. The technique involved a three-part sequence: stretching a laser pulse thousands of times so that the power was low; amplifying the pulse to higher intensities; and then compressing the pulse in time back to its exact original duration.<\/p>\n Mourou knew the pulse needed to be perfectly compressed, yet still retain its amplification, in order to make the technique work more effectively. \u201cIf you can do it exactly, then you can go to much higher power,\u201d Mourou says.<\/p>\n He had the idea to put amplification in the middle of the process\u2014a novel concept at the time, according to Strickland. \u201cDifferent people were trying to get short pulses amplified in different ways, but it was thinking outside the box to stretch first and then amplify,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Chirped pulse amplification, however, was only a theory. Strickland and Mourou still had to make it work. At the LLE, Strickland tested different laser systems to create laser pulses that were short and high powered, but that wouldn\u2019t destroy the amplifying material. In 1985, she succeeded, demonstrating the stunning advance in laser power with the table-top terawatt laser, or \u201cT-cubed laser.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Strickland didn\u2019t recognize the research would interest an audience outside the laser-physics community: \u201cI was aware that it was going to be big for scientists working in high-intensity laser physics,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t know it would have relevance for the general public so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Chirped pulse amplification has since paved the way for the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created, making it possible to build more compact and precise laser systems.<\/p>\n \u201cGerard\u2019s original motivation was to take a football field-sized laser and compress it down to the size of a tabletop,\u201d says Wayne Knox, professor of optics and former Institute of Optics director, who was Mourou\u2019s first PhD student and worked in his Ultra-Fast Laser Group. \u201cNow we\u2019ve compressed them even further. I have in my lab a laser the size of a bread box that uses this technology.\u201d<\/p>\n Making the accelerators more compact, yet powerful, changed the field of laser science by allowing laser technologies to be used more broadly, especially in medical settings. Chirped pulse amplification is instrumental, for example, in laser eye surgeries such as Lasik, to quickly slice open the lens of an eye without damaging the surrounding tissue. It\u2019s used to accelerate protons in proton therapies to treat deep-tissue tumors, like those that develop in the brain. Beyond its medical applications, chirped pulse amplification is important in more precise machining of materials such as the cover glass used in smartphones. Mourou has also developed a technique to treat radioactive waste using the technology.<\/p>\n But the technique is also essential in basic physics research. Today, Strickland and Mourou\u2019s discovery continues to help shape the direction of research in high-powered lasers of the kind housed at the LLE, says Mike Campbell, director of the laboratory. \u201cThe development of chirped pulse amplification by G\u00e9rard and Donna has created numerous new applications in science and industry and has catalyzed research around the world in high-peak-power lasers.\u201d<\/p>\n Scientists use ultrafast lasers to create the extreme conditions found in space, allowing them to study star formation and the inner workings of distant planets. The technique also allows physicists to take ultrafast images of split-second processes at the molecular level in order to study how atoms behave.<\/p>\n \u201cCPA is really a fundamental advance,\u201d says Jonathan Zuegel, senior scientist at the LLE and director for laser development and engineering.<\/p>\n Interestingly, despite her seminal contribution, Strickland still wears glasses. As she told the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>, she refuses to get the corrective eye surgery made possible by her laser research: \u201cI have great faith in lasers, but no one\u2019s putting one near my eye.\u201d<\/p>\n For his part, Mourou hopes to encourage even more students in the field of ultrafast laser science to pursue their scientific interests.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing when you think about it, because this Nobel-winning work was Donna\u2019s thesis,\u201d he says. \u201cOne thing about research is that it is a passion. Science is not a 9-to-5 job; it\u2019s something you think about all the time, and it\u2019s very demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n And, as he and Strickland found, \u201cYou have to work hard at it, and you have to love it.\u201d<\/p>\n This story appeared in the fall 2018 issue of <\/em>Rochester Review<\/a>, the magazine of the\u00a0Ä¢¹½´«Ã½<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donna Strickland \u201989 (PhD), a self-described \u201claser jock,\u201d receives the Nobel Prize, along with her advisor, G\u00e9rard Mourou, for work they did at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Donna Strickland…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":683762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-683742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-magazine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Nobel collaboration<\/h3>\n
Changing the field of laser science<\/h3>\n
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