Abstract: The focus of this talk will be on NIF technical capabilities, the National Ignition Campaign, and the new scientific opportunities in material science, astrophysics, and other areas of high energy density science made available by NIF. The LIFE (Laser Inertial Fission-Fusion Energy) scheme, a fission-fusion hybrid capable of generating energy by coupling fusion neutrons to fissile material such as spent reactor fuel and excess weapon nuclear material, will also be discussed. LIFE, a once-through closed fuel cycle that will provide a sustainable, carbon-free source of energy has the potential of revolutionizing our energy future.
Biography: Dr. Ed Moses is the Principal Associate Director for the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California. In this role he is responsible for completing construction and activation of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and transforming it into a national user facility. When complete, NIF will be the world’s largest and most energetic laser system. Experiments on NIF will access high energy density and fusion regimes with direct application to national security, fusion energy research, high energy density science, and astrophysics. Dr. Moses is also the National Director of the National Ignition Campaign, a multi-institutional effort with a goal of achieving fusion ignition in the laboratory—the culmination of a 50-year quest.
Dr. Moses is internationally recognized in laser and optical sciences. He holds a BS and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He has received many honors, including the National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Programs Award of Excellence for Significant Contribution to the Stockpile Stewardship Program and the Memorial D.S. Rozhdestvensky Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Lasers and Optical Sciences. Dr. Moses holds seven patents in laser technology and computational physics and an R&D100 Award for the Peregrine radiation therapy program. |
Abstract: I will trace the path from invention to exciting advances in the physics, applications and commercialization of these revolutionary lasers which cover the mid- and far-ir spectrum and are broadly impacting sensing, spectroscopy, and sub-wavelength photonics.
Biography: Federico Capasso is the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University, which he joined in 2003 after a 26 year career at Bell Labs where he rose from postdoc to Vice President for Physical Research. He holds a Doctor of Physics degree from the University of Rome, Italy, 1973. His research includes the design of new artificial materials and novel devices, plasmonics, nanophotonics, and the investigation of Casimir forces. He is co-inventor of the quantum cascade laser, a fundamentally new light source, which has now been commercialized.
He has co-authored over 300 papers, edited four volumes, and holds over 65 US patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of OSA, IEEE, SPIE, APS and AAAS. His awards include the King Faisal International Prize for Science, the American Physical Society Arthur Schawlow Prize, the IEEE Edison Medal, the IEEE/LEOS Streifer Award, the Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute, the OSA Robert Wood prize, the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics, the Material Research Society Medal, the IEEE D. Sarnoff Award, the Welker Medal, the Duddell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (UK), the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. |
Abstract: Bell’s theorem has drawn physicists’ attention onto the revolutionary character of entanglement. Based on that concept, a new field has emerged, quantum information, where one uses entanglement between qubits to develop conceptually new methods for processing and transmitting information.
Biography: Alain Aspect, born in 1947, studied physics at ENS de Cachan and Université d’Orsay, and taught in Cameroon for his military service. In 1974 he started at Institut d’Optique on a series of experiments on the foundations of quantum mechanics, known as “Experimental Tests of Bell’s Inequalities with Entangled Photons”, completed in 1982 and the subject of his “thèse d’Etat” (PhD). Then, with his student Philippe Grangier, he developped and characterized the first source of heralded single photons, and performed an experiment on wave particle duality. A modern implementation has recently permitted the realization of the Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment.
From 1985 to 1992 he worked at ENS Paris with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji on atom cooling; in particular “Laser Cooling below the One Photon Recoil”.
Since 1992, he is the head of the Atom Optics Group that he has established at the Institut d’Optique, with main activity on Bose Einstein Condensates, Atom Lasers, and Quantum Atom Optics. Recent results include: discovery of metastable helium BEC, comparison of the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect for bosonic and fermionic atoms, and direct observation of Anderson localisation of matter waves.
Alain Aspect is a CNRS senior scientist at Institut d’Optique, and a Professor at Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau.
He is a member of the Académie des Sciences and of the Académie des Technologies (France), and foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).
He is a fellow of the OSA, EOS, APS, and has received several international awards. In 2005, he received the CNRS gold medal, the highest research distinction in France. |