Topic: Extreme Light and Applications
Speaker: Gérard Mourou, 2018 Nobel Prize Laureate, Chair Professor of Peking University
Time: Wednesday, March 5, 2025, Beijing Time 16:00
Venue: Sunrise Concert Hall, Xueyuan Road Campus
Sponsor: Ecole de Centrale Peckin / School of General Engineering
Co-organizers: International Relations Department, School of Physics
About the Speaker:
Gérard Mourou, a distinguished Chair Professor at Peking University and a renowned laser physicist, has made groundbreaking contributions to the field of laser physics. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France in 1967, followed by a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Université Paris VI in 1970 and 1973, respectively. From 1970 to 1973, he conducted collaborative research at Université Laval in Canada, and from 1973 to 1974, he pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Gérard Mourou served as a scientist at the École Polytechnique in France from 1974 to 1977. He then joined the University of Rochester in the United States, where he held various positions, including scientist, senior scientist, and professor, from 1977 to 1989. From 1989 to 2004, he was the A.D. Moore Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. Between 2005 and September 2024, he was a professor at the École Polytechnique and the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. In October 2024, he joined the School of Physics at Peking University.
Gérard Mourou’s pioneering work includes the co-invention of chirped pulse amplification (CPA) with Donna Strickland, a revolutionary technique that opened new avenues for achieving ultra-high-power lasers and advanced laser-matter interactions into the relativistic and extreme relativistic regimes. His research has also laid the foundation for the field of ultrafast science, demonstrating for the first time the use of femtosecond lasers for sub-picosecond precision electrical signal measurements and enabling time-resolved electron diffraction imaging on the picosecond scale. Additionally, he has expanded the applications of lasers in medicine, industry, and cutting-edge fundamental scientific research. In recognition of his exceptional contributions, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, elected as a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2019, and honored with the Golden Goose Award in 2022.
