High-energy density physics group (HEDP) scientist at The Ohio State University (OSU), Dr. Enam Chowdhury has been awarded a 1.5 million dollar grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). With this award, Dr. Chowdhury will lead a team of faculty members and researchers at Ohio State Physics, Material Science and Engineering, Industrial Engineering, University of Texas at Austin Physics, and Plymouth Grating Laboratory, MA, to develop fundamental understanding of femtosecond (fs) laser-matter interaction with solids near, at and above damage fluence utilizing strong synergistic efforts in experiments, simulation and theory. Dr. Chowdhury will build a dedicated laser experimental station capable of generating multiple short pulse beams from UV to mid IR, and pulse widths ranging from 5 – 1000 fs in the Physics Research Building to carry out this research.

Intense femtosecond laser pulses interact with solids by first ionizing bound electrons, then accelerating them in the laser field to create a rapidly evolving non-thermal distribution of electrons, which then couples their energy to the lattice via interactions with phonons, electrons, ions and charge separation fields cause rapid phase changes and ablation of materials. Intense femtosecond light interacting with exotic periodic and quasi periodic nano-structured surfaces may exhibit novel surface plasmon resonances. Although, many of these phenomena have been studied from phenomenological perspectives for over two decades, fundamental aspects like non-linear field ionization dynamics in solids or matter ablation timescale, remain unanswered; many effects cannot be explained quantitatively from first principles. The team led by Dr. Chowdhury will endeavor to answer many of these questions in the next few years. Currently two OSU Physics graduate students, Kyle Kafka and Robert Mitchell are working on this project.

Dr. Chowdhury is scheduled to give a Special Colloquium - "Towards the most intense light fields in the galaxy: SCARLET Laser Focus"

Monday, November 19, 2012
11:30am - 12:30pm
Physics Research Building
Smith Seminar Room 1080