Harnessing controlled molecular dynamics

Professor Randy A. Bartels

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Colorado State University

Shaped ultrafast laser pulses can be used to create ultrafast transients in the nonlinear susceptibility of molecular gases. I will discuss the use controlled preparation of coherent molecular dynamics that produce femtosecond time-scale transients in the index of refraction of a molecular gas. I show how these transients are used to manipulate the spectrum of ultrafast optical pulse enabling a new degree of control over ultrafast laser pulses.

 

Randy A. Bartels received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan 2002. His Ph.D. work was performed at JILA in Boulder, CO, where he worked on ultrafast laser development, coherent control of quantum systems, and the study of extreme nonlinear optical processes. Among other advances, this work led to the development of attophysics by manipulating the strong-field dynamics of atomic electron wave functions with ~ 10 attosecond precision. During his graduate career, Randy was supported by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and received numerous awards, including the IEEE LEOS Graduate Fellowship, Optical Society of America s New Focus Student Research Award, a JILA scientific achievement award, and selection as a finalist for the DAMOP Thesis Award. Prior to graduate school, he worked in the Laser Science and Technology division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory designing and building diode-pumped solid-state laser systems. Randy joined Colorado State University (CSU) as an assistant professor in January of 2003. Since arriving at CSU, Prof. Bartels has been awarded the 2004 Adolph Lomb Medal from the Optical Society of America, a 2004 National Science Foundation CAREER award, and was recently named a 2005 Sloan Research Fellow in physics, a 2005 ONR Young Investigator Award, and a 2005 Beckman Young Investigator Award. His current research involves the control of molecular coherences for novel nonlinear optics and manipulation of ultrafast optical pulses, as well as development of EUV laser sources and optical systems. He is a member of the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, the IEEE, and Sigma Xi. More information is available at http://www.engr.colostate.edu/ultrafast/.