Degrees

PhD Physics, Mass. Inst. Of Tech. (MIT), Cambridge, Mass. 1962.

Thesis title, “Role of Excited State Degeneracy in Dispersion Phenomena”.

BS Physics (summa cum laude), Principia College, Elsah, IL 1957.

Research Interests

Principal investigator for Laser Science and Engineering Laboratory at University of Alabama in Huntsville. Current funding is from NASA, NSF, AFOSR and USRA/BMDO. A current theme is design of lasers for beaming power at multi-megawatt levels from space to earth. One goal is to design lasers capable of handling this level of power for non-military applications that cannot be converted to military use. An experimental theme is examination of the influence of one-dimensional photonic band structures on short optical pulses (100 femtoseconds duration). Applications to optical beam steering are being explored. Experimental work is being carried out using a femtosecond modelocked Ti:sapphire laser and a regenerative amplifier for white light optical pulse generation. The white light optical pulses are used for the measurement of the dynamics of photonic band edge materials. We are also developing simulations of the group delay and phase delay of short pulses propagating through layered semiconductor structures and comparing the experimental observations of the photonic band edge materials with favorable results. We are developing designs for thin disk laser amplifiers intended to intense ultrashort optical pulses at high repetition rate. Work has also been done on harmonically modelocked optical fiber lasers, nonlinear loop modelocked optical fiber lasers, four wave mixing, and pairs of colliding pulse modelocked lasers synchronized and phase locked by nonlinear coupling.

Publications

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