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Presented by: Margaret Murnane, JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder

Abstract: Ever since the invention of the laser over 60 years ago, scientists have been striving to create x-ray lasers. In the same way that visible lasers can concentrate light energy far better than a light bulb, a directed beam of x-rays would have many useful applications. The problem was that until recently, ridiculously high powers were needed to make an x-ray laser. Some of the first x-ray lasers were powered by nuclear detonations as as part of the “star wars” program in the 1980s. To make a practical, tabletop-scale, x-ray laser source required taking a very different approach. The story behind how this happened is surprising, where we learned how to transform ultrafast laser light into directed beams of x-rays by sculpting the wave function of a radiating electron. Along the way, we also learned to generate the shortest strobe light in existence, and to build near-perfect short wavelength microscopes.

Host: Tobin Munsat

  • Manuela Palma

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