Department of Applied Physics

Lasers and Accelerators

Physics and applications of photon and charged particle sources including table-top lasers, accelerators, and Linac Coherent Light Source---the world's first x-ray laser.

Precision measurement with lasers including LISA and LIGO; ultrafast laser spectroscopy and ultrafast quantum control; attosecond atom-scale imaging with x-rays; physics of accelerator-based x-ray sources; material structures for lasers and nonlinear optics; nonlinear dynamics and feedback control in particle accelerators and storage rings; spectroscopy at extreme conditions; laser- and plasma-based particle acceleration.

Featured AP Faculty

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  Philip H. Bucksbaum

  I work in many areas of ultrafast laser science and technology, and also work in areas that are related to x-ray free electron laser performance and science applications. The PULSE Institute is devoted to science and applications of these sources an... More >>

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  Robert L. Byer

  Lasers and application of laser to precision measurements. We work in LIGO and also in LISA and have a major effort underway to develop a satellite for precision measurements of Michelson Morley and Kennedy Thorndike experiments on orbit using advan... More >>

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  Sebastian Doniach

  I am collaborating with John Spence of Arizona state Univ on measurement of correlated scattering using the x-ray laser LCLS to capture enzyme function on micro-second to millisecond time scales. Other people involved include Vijay Pande of Chemistry... More >>

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  Michel Digonnet

  I am working in collaboration with Bob Byer on the development of Tm-doped mode-locked fiber lasers operating around 2 µm for possible implementation in table-top particle accelerators. The mid-range objective is to demonstrate frequency-stable puls... More >>

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  Martin M. Fejer

  Nonlinear optical materials and devices. Guided wave optics. Microstructured ferroelectrics and semiconductors. Photorefractive phenomena. Optical characterization of materials and material synthesis processes. More >>

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  Mark A. Kasevich

  Ultrastable lasers. Ultrafast electron sources. More >>

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  David A. Reis

  My group makes extensive use of ultrafast lasers and optics and accelerator sources of x-rays in our research. More >>

Additional Stanford/SLAC Faculty

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  John D. Fox

  Accelerator Physics, beam instrumentation, RF technology, high speed circuits, signal processing systems and laboratory measurement techniques. Dynamics of particle beams, control of unstable systems via feedback techniques. Our group has an interd... More >>

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  Tor O. Raubenheimer

  My research is focused in two areas: the creation of compact accelerators for science, medicine and industry and study of high brightness electron and x-ray sources. The former consists of parallel development of high gradient microwave accelerators... More >>

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  Ronald D. Ruth

  I currently perform research on the physics of free electron lasers, particle beam dynamics and high power RF devices. I am presently teaching Introduction to Accelerator Physics, and other courses which I may offer over the next couple of years inc... More >>

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  Sami Tantawi

  Our group is exploring the possibility of boosting the useable acceleration gradients for both normal conducting and superconducting linear accelerators (linacs). Our effort includes the development of linacs and associated technologies such as nove... More >>

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  Daniel Palanker

  Our research is focused on interactions of pulsed electric field and light with biological cells and tissues. In optical domain we study laser-tissue interactions and develop their biomedical (primarily ophthalmic) applications. The research themes i... More >>

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  Thomas M. Himel

  My work on particle accelerators follows three major themes. 1. Feedback systems used to stabilize and control the beam. 2. Developing the control systems used to run the accelerators. 3. Looking system issues of current or proposed accelerators such... More >>

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  Alexander W. Chao

  Physics of lasers and acceleartors, dynamics of photons and charged particles and their interactions, high intensity effects, free electron lasers, various types of accelerator designs and frontier applications. More >>

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  Jelena Vuckovic

  Nanocavity lasers and laser arrays More >>

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  Steven M. Block

  The Block lab, which carries out research in the area of single molecule biophysics, explores the nanoscience of life. Nature’s own nanoscale machines, which include proteins and nucleic acids, are complex macromolecules that are exquisitely ‘de... More >>

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  Zhi-Xun Shen

  Development of laser capabilities to enable condensed matter physics experiments---examples include time resolved photo-emission spectroscopy using UV lasers and soft x-ray scattering using the LCLS. More >>

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  Wendy L. Mao

  We are interested in using ultrafast laser and x-ray techniques to study dynamics in systems at extreme conditions. More >>

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  Benjamin Lev

  Applications of high power and narrow linewidth lasers for the cooling, trapping, and spectroscopy of exotic atoms. Applications of frequency stabilized multimode resonators to the study of quantum soft matter in many body cavity QED. Laser trappin... More >>

• Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Experimental and Theoretical Biophysics

Recent Graduates

• McGuinness, Christopher

  Dissertation: Particle Accelerator on a Chip: Fabrication and Characterization of a Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Accelertor

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  Thomas, Richard

• Lewellen, John

  Dissertation: Thermionic Cathode RF Guns for Compact Free Electron Lasers

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  Bjorkholm, John E.

  Dissertation: Measurement of several optical nonlinearities using focused Gaussian laser beams

Applied Physics Posts

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  Imaging nonequilibrium phonons

  Posted by dreis on Dec 16, 2010

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  Intense laser-matter interactions results in high-order harmonic generation in solids

  Posted by dreis on Dec 10, 2010