Video interview with Martin Richardson: the Townes Laser Institute at CREOL

From his graduate studies in the first years of the laser to the directorship of the Townes Laser Institute, his career encompasses many of the most important names and developments in technology.

Martin Richardson is the Northrup Grumman Professor of X-ray Photonics & Director Townes Laser Institute at the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL).

Martin Richardson graduated from Imperial College, London, in Physics (1964) and gained his Ph.D in Photon Physics from London University in 1967 as the first student to graduate in lasers under the advisement of the late Daniel Bradley. For his thesis he studied the spectral characteristics of laser modes, investigated non-linear optical processes in dense plasmas and developed a new high power dual frequency laser.

In 1990 he and William Silfvast established the Laser Plasma Laboratory at CREOL, the Center of Research in Electro-Optics & Lasers at UCF, developing research programs in ultrafast laser development, laser-plasma studies, EUV/X-ray lithography and microscopy and laser materials processing. These research activities expanded to include femtosecond laser structuring of materials, laser spectroscopy and sensing and high-intensity laser filamentation studies in the atmosphere. In 2003 he was appointed the Northrop Grumman Professor of X-ray Photonics as part of major $24M donation to UCF. He was made a Trustee Chair of the University in 2006, and appointed as the first and founding director of the Townes Laser Institute in 2007.

The Townes Laser Institute was dedicated in 2007 in the presence of, and honoring Charles Townes, 1964 Nobel Laureate in Physics and the inventor of the concept of the laser.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• SPIE
• photonics
• optics
• laser
• UCF
• CREOL
• Townes
• physics
• science