The 50th anniversary of the laser will be celebrated at an open arrangement at the beginning of the international conference, ICPEPA 7 (International Conference on Photo-Excited Processes and Applications) in the Lundbeck Auditorium at the Biocenter of University of Copenhagen. The group of Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, California, USA, turned on the first laser 50 years ago. The anniversary is actually also celebrated at several international conferences outside Denmark as well.
The laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) was considered a scientific artifact at the discovery. Nobody expected the device to be known outside a small scientific community. However, today lasers are used everywhere in our society, in our fast communication by optical fibers, as hardware parts in laser printers, DVD-drives and optical scanners in shops. They are also used for machining and welding of huge objects such as ships as well as micromachining of small mechanical parts.
In Physics the laser has provided the researchers with a precise well-characterized light source which can produce ultrashort pulses of extreme power and intensity, but also continuous beams of well-defined wavelengths. The high intensity can be utilized for production of new materials, e.g. in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells with a very complicated chemical composition, and for fast mass analysis of organic materials. In the last decades laser cooling was used to produce a new state of matter, the so-called Bose-Einstein condensate that has revolutionized our concepts in quantum mechanics.
The conference ICPEPA is focusing on photo-excitations and the possible applications. It is a minor conference with about 120 participants, but it was only possible to get it to Denmark with a joint effort headed by Senior Scientist Jørgen Schou at DTU Fotonik. Four different laser groups in Denmark from the major Physics universities in Denmark, University of Copenhagen with Niels Bohr Institute, DTU Fotonik at the Technical University of Denmark, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, and Mads Clausen Institute at University of Southern Denmark participate in the local organization. The conference has participants from 27 countries with Denmark, Germany and the East Asian states (Japan, Rep. Korea, Taiwan) as the largest contributors.
Since most of the participants are younger than the laser – and many young physicist cannot imagine a project without a laser – the local committee has, therefore, planned to take this opportunity to ask one of the veterans of laser science, Prof. Sune Svanberg to give a talk: “The laser- the first 50 years” and this session will be a public session as an open arrangement.
It is striking that a scientific discovery which initially was considered to be without any significance - 50 years later - has driven industrial enterprises to turnovers of billions of Euros and physics to extreme limits with the upcoming major European Facility XFEL (X-ray Free Electron Laser) in Hamburg as a milestone.
Address:
Lundbeck Auditoriet, Biocentret, Ole Maaløes vej 5, 2200 N.
Tidspunkt: Mandag den 16. august, kl. 9:00 – 10:15
More information: Jørgen Schou, Tlf. 46774755 (josc@fotonik.dtu.dk) eller
Martin Meedom Nielsen, Tlf. 35320427 (martin.meedom.nielsen@nbi.ku.dk) .