Extreme Light: Bridging Optics and Fundamental High Energy Physics

Gérard A. Mourou is Director of the Laboratoire d’ Optique Appliquée at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Technique Avancée and Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique (France). Previously, he was the Director of the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, at the University of Michigan. Professor Mourou pioneered the field of ultrafast lasers and their applications in scientific, engineering and medical disciplines. His research accomplishments include the creation of the ultrahigh-intensity fields, advances in relativistic nonlinear optics, generation of terahertz radiation, development of picosecond high-power switching and picosecond electron diffraction. In the area of applications he pioneered the field of sub-wavelength machining and with medical colleagues the field of femtosecond ophthalmology. Professor Mourou has received many awards, including the R. W. Wood Prize for outstanding discovery and inventions in the field of ultrafast optical science, the Harold E. Edgerton Award, and the D. Sarnoff Award from IEEE, both for ultrafast optical techniques and invention of the Chirped Pulse Amplification technique. In 2002, Prof. Mourou was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), a fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the American Physical Society of America. In 2009, OSA awarded him the Charles Hard Townes Award for outstanding contribution to the field of quantum electronics.