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Upon receiving the Nobel, many commentators were surprised that she had not reached the rank of full professor. In response, Strickland said that she has "never applied" for a professorship;<ref name="CHE ‘I Never Applied’">{{Cite journal |last1=Crowe |first1=Cailin |title='I Never Applied': Nobel Winner Explains Associate-Professor Status, but Critics Still See Steeper Slope for Women |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/I-Never-Applied-Nobel/244699 |journal=] |accessdate=7 October 2018|date=2 October 2018 }}</ref> "it doesn't carry necessarily a pay raise", so she "never filled out the paper work." More simply: "I do what I want to do and that wasn't worth doing."<ref name="whirlwind" /> Upon receiving the Nobel, many commentators were surprised that she had not reached the rank of full professor. In response, Strickland said that she has "never applied" for a professorship;<ref name="CHE ‘I Never Applied’">{{Cite journal |last1=Crowe |first1=Cailin |title='I Never Applied': Nobel Winner Explains Associate-Professor Status, but Critics Still See Steeper Slope for Women |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/I-Never-Applied-Nobel/244699 |journal=] |accessdate=7 October 2018|date=2 October 2018 }}</ref> "it doesn't carry necessarily a pay raise", so she "never filled out the paper work." More simply: "I do what I want to do and that wasn't worth doing."<ref name="whirlwind" />

Other commentators also noted her lack of a Misplaced Pages page. reported that in May 2018, an entry on Strickland was rejected on the grounds that she lacked "notability." This comes as no surprise given the fact that as of 2016, only 17 percent of Misplaced Pages's biographical entries were about women ().


==Selected publications== ==Selected publications==

Revision as of 18:31, 14 October 2018

Canadian physicist and Nobel laureate

Donna Strickland
Donna Strickland in 2017
BornDonna Theo Strickland
(1959-05-27) 27 May 1959 (age 65)
Guelph, Canada
Education
Known for
SpouseDoug Dykaar
Children2
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsUniversity of Waterloo
ThesisDevelopment of an ultra-bright laser and an application to multi-photon ionization (1988)
Doctoral advisorGérard Mourou
WebsiteUniversity website

Donna Theo Strickland (born 27 May 1959) is a Canadian optical physicist and pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, together with Gérard Mourou, for the invention of chirped pulse amplification. She is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo.

She served as fellow, vice president, and president of The Optical Society, and is currently chair of their Presidential Advisory Committee.

Early life and education

File:Donna Strickland as a graduate student at the University of Rochester (cropped).jpg
Strickland aligning an optical fiber during her graduate work as a member of the Picosecond Research Group, 1985

Strickland was born on 27 May 1959, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada to Edith J. (née Ranney), an English teacher, and Lloyd Strickland, an electrical engineer. She decided to attend McMaster University because its engineering physics program included lasers and electro-optics, areas of particular interest. At McMaster, she was one of three women in a class of 25. Strickland graduated with a B.Eng. degree in engineering physics in 1981.

Strickland studied for her graduate degree in the Institute of Optics, receiving a Ph.D. degree from the University of Rochester in 1989. She conducted her doctoral research at the associated Laboratory for Laser Energetics, supervised by Gérard Mourou. Strickland and Mourou worked to develop an experimental setup that could raise the peak power of laser pulses, to overcome a limitation, that when the maximum intensity of laser pulses reached gigawatts/cm, the pulses severely damaged the amplifying part of the laser. Their 1985 technique of chirped pulse amplification stretched out each laser pulse both spectrally and in time before amplifying it, then compressed each pulse back to its original duration, generating ultrashort optical pulses of terawatt intensity. Using chirped pulse amplification allowed smaller high-power laser systems be built, as "table-top terawatt lasers". The work received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Career

Strickland's ultrafast laser group at University of Waterloo, in 2017

From 1988 to 1991, Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council of Canada, where she worked with Paul Corkum in the Ultrafast Phenomena Section, which had the distinction at that time of having produced the most powerful short-pulse laser in the world. She worked in the laser division of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1991 to 1992 and joined the technical staff of Princeton University's Advanced Technology Center for Photonics and Opto-electronic Materials in 1992. She joined the University of Waterloo in 1997 as an assistant professor. Strickland is currently an associate professor, leading an ultrafast laser group that develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations. She has described herself as a "laser jock":

I think it's because we thought we were good with our hands. As an experimentalist you need to understand the physics but you also need to be able to actually make something work, and the lasers were very finicky in those days.

Strickland's recent work has focused on pushing the boundaries of ultrafast optical science to new wavelength ranges such as the mid-infrared and the ultraviolet, using techniques such as two-colour or multi-frequency methods, as well as Raman generation. She is also working on the role of high-power lasers in the microcrystalline lens of the human eye, during the process of micromachining of the eye lens to cure presbyopia.

Strickland became a fellow of The Optical Society in 2008. She served as its vice president and president in 2011 and 2013 respectively, and was a topical editor of its journal Optics Letters from 2004 to 2010. She is currently the chair of The Optical Society's Presidential Advisory Committee.

Awards and recognition

Strickland shares how a trip to the science centre with her father at the age of five helped shape her career in optics, 2018

Nobel Prize

On 2 October 2018, Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on chirped pulse amplification with her doctoral adviser Gérard Mourou. Arthur Ashkin received the other half of the Prize for unrelated work on optical tweezers.

Strickland and Mourou published their pioneering work "Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses" in 1985, while Strickland was still a doctoral student under Mourou. Their invention of chirped pulse amplification for lasers at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics in Rochester, led to the development of the field of high-intensity ultrashort pulses of light beams. Because the ultrabrief and ultrasharp light beams are capable of making extremely precise cuts, the technique is used in laser micromachining, laser surgery, medicine, fundamental science studies, and other applications. It has enabled doctors to perform millions of corrective laser eye surgeries. She said that after developing the technique they knew it would be a significant discovery.

As of 2018, Strickland is the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and the first in 55 years, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963.

Upon receiving the Nobel, many commentators were surprised that she had not reached the rank of full professor. In response, Strickland said that she has "never applied" for a professorship; "it doesn't carry necessarily a pay raise", so she "never filled out the paper work." More simply: "I do what I want to do and that wasn't worth doing."

Selected publications

Personal life

Strickland is married to Douglas Dykaar, also a physicist. They have two children.

See also

Notes

  1. then known as Optical Society of America
  2. Strickland attempted to add Steve Williamson as an author of the paper, but Mourou removed the name as "he hadn't done enough".

References

  1. ^ Strickland, Donna Theo (1988). Development of an ultra-bright laser and an application to multi-photon ionization (PDF) (PhD). University of Rochester. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 July 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2018. {{cite thesis}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. Lindinger, Manfred (2 October 2018). "Eine Zange aus lauter Licht". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 6 October 2018.
  3. "Donna Strickland – Facts – 2018". Nobel Foundation. 6 October 2018. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
  4. "Physics Nobel prize won by Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland". The Guardian. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  5. ^ "Donna Strickland". University of Waterloo. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  6. ^ Booth, Laura (3 October 2018). "Scientist caught in a Nobel whirlwind". Waterloo Region Record. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  7. ^ Semeniuk, Ivan (2 October 2018). "Canada's newest Nobel Prize winner, Donna Strickland, 'just wanted to do something fun'". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  8. Mourou, Gérard (2004). "53. The dawn of ultrafast science and technology at the University of Rochester." (PDF). In Stroud, Carlos (ed.). A Jewel in the Crown: 75th Anniversary Essays of The Institute of Optics of the University of Rochester. Rochester, NY: Meliora Press. p. 272. ISBN 158046162X.
  9. ^ "Biographies – Donna T. Strickland". The Optical Society. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  10. "Donna Strickland". Education Program for Photonics Professionals. University of Waterloo. 11 September 2012. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  11. ^ Valich, Lindsey (2 October 2018). "Rochester breakthrough in laser science earns Nobel Prize". Newscenter. University of Rochester. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  12. ^ Murphy, Jessica (2 October 2018). "Donna Strickland: The 'laser jock' Nobel prize winner". BBC News. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  13. Page, Shelley (19 October 1990). "Laser lab makes short work of super beam". Ottawa Citizen.
  14. "Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland Awarded 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics". The Optical Society. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  15. "Standing and Ad Hoc Committees". The Optical Society. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  16. "Past Sloan Fellows". Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Retrieved 2 October 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  17. "Cottrell Scholars" (PDF). Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Retrieved 2 October 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  18. "2008 OSA Fellows". The Optical Society. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  19. Strickland, Donna; Mourou, Gerard (15 October 1985). "Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses". Optics Communications. 55 (6): 447–449. doi:10.1016/0030-4018(85)90151-8. ISSN 0030-4018.
  20. "'Optical Tweezers' and Tools Used for Laser Eye Surgery Snag Physics Nobel". Scientific American. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  21. Rincon, Paul (2 October 2018). "First woman Physics Nobel winner in 55 years". BBC News. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  22. Crowe, Cailin (2 October 2018). "'I Never Applied': Nobel Winner Explains Associate-Professor Status, but Critics Still See Steeper Slope for Women". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 7 October 2018.

External links

Scholia has an author profile for Donna Strickland.
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