2011 Gérard Mourou

Professor Gérard A. Mourou is Director of the Laboratoire d’ Optique Appliquée at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Technique Avancée and Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique (France). He was until recently at the University of Michigan the A. D. Moore Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Applied Physics in 1995. In 1991, he became the director of the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. Professor Mourou has received many awards, including the R. W. Wood Prize for outstanding discovery and inventions in the field of ultrafast optical science, the Harold E. Edgerton Award, and the D. Sarnoff Award from IEEE, both for ultrafast optical techniques and invention of the Chirped Pulse Amplification technique.

Professor Mourou pioneered the field of ultrafast lasers and their applications in scientific, engineering and medical disciplines. His research accomplishments include the creation of the ultrahigh-intensity fields, advances in relativistic nonlinear optics, generation of terahertz radiation, development of picosecond high-power switching and picosecond electron diffraction. In the area of applications he pioneered the field of sub-wavelength machining and with medical colleagues the field of femtosecond ophthalmology.

In 2002, Professor Mourou was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, a fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the American Physical Society of America.

He lectured on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 in the Michigan League Ballroom.