Dr. Paul Corkum, professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa, will deliver this year’s Plasma Science and Technology Distinguished Speaker Lecture entitled “Plasma Physics at the Atomic Level.” The lecture, sponsored by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the School and Engineering and Applied Science, will be held on the Princeton University campus, Tuesday, February 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering faculty room, J-223, E-Quad, Olden St., Princeton.

The talk will describe the deeper understanding of the effects of strong fields on atomic and molecular physics made possible by his invention of high-power short-pulse X-ray lasers based on optical field multiphoton ionization. These systems have achieved record levels of intensity and brevity, allowing scientists to probe, with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, the detailed geometry, chemistry, and attosecond evolution of small systems, exploiting and “photographing” the orbitals of individual electrons.

The characteristics of the coherently emitted light during the ionization process extend optical science to extremely short pulses and short wavelengths. The emergent plasma-physics-like concepts are shown to be applicable to the multiphoton creation of excitons in solids and allow measurement of the band structure of solids with all-optical methods.

Dr. Corkum, a member of the Royal Societies of London and of Canada, the Order of Canada, and the U.S. Academy of Sciences, is Director of the Attosecond Science Program, National Research Council. He has been awarded the Canadian Association of Physicists’ gold medal for lifetime achievement in Physics (1996), the Einstein Award of the Society for Optical and Quantum Electronics (1999), the Royal Society of Canada’s Tory Medal (2003), her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Medal (2002), the Optical Society’s Charles H. Townes award (2005), the IEEE’s Quantum Electronics award (2005), the American Physical Society’s Arthur L. Schawlow prize for Quantum Electronics (2006), and NSERC’s Polanyi Award (2008).

The talk is free and open to the public.