ABSTRACT The generation of few-cycle laser fields in spectral regions spanning the ultraviolet to infrared can provide unique optical sources for spectroscopy of atoms, molecules and materials. My talk will focus on a series of investigations into generating and characterizing novel femtosecond laser sources produced via nonlinear optical phenomena in gas-filled capillaries. I will discuss the efficient generation of femtosecond pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet, producing few-cycle ultraviolet and visible laser pulses, generating shaped laser pulses at high repetition rates and generating few-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared.

BIO Ruaridh Forbes received the M.Sc. degree in chemical physics from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K., before starting graduate School with the University College London, London, U.K. The majority of his graduate work was carried out with the National Research Council of Canada under the supervision of Prof. Albert Stolow. He joined the Stanford PULSE Institute as a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Group of Prof. Philip Bucksbaum before joining the Laser Science department of LCLS in 2020 to lead aspects of the LCLS II laser R&D Program. As of July 2024, he started his research group with the Department of Chemistry, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA. His research interests include experimental ultrafast spectroscopy, inner shell processes and strong-field physics in polyatomic molecules, and development of high average power and high repetition rate laser sources.

This seminar is sponsored by the Department of Applied Physics and the Ginzton Laboratory