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B.A., Middlebury College (1990)
M.A, Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, (1992, 1995) Experimental ultrafast-physics, and fluid dynamics. |
| A century ago, the shortest time interval that could be measured, a millisecond, was available from streak-recording methods, and by 1965 the capabilities of high frequency electronic circuitry had reduced this limit to a nanosecond. The time resolution limit dropped precipitously after 1965 due to the invention of the laser and now is on the order of 1 fs (10-15 s). In this decade, pulses with duration shorter than 100 fs became widely available, and we can now reliably generate pulses shorter than 10 fs. These pulses provide a tool for exploring nature in a previously inaccessible time domain; the evolution of nonequilibrium materials can be resolved, chemical reactions can be controlled, phase transitions can be monitored, and energy can be impulsively deposited into materials. The Donnelly group puts these pulses to use studying the ultrafast properties of nonequilibrium metals, laser-driven fusion, and nonlinear optics in a time regime where the traditional models of light-matter interactions break down. |
| Office | Telephone | |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Donnelly Department of Physics Harvey Mudd College 301 E. 12th St. Claremont, CA 91711-5990 |
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909-607-1843, Office 909-621-8024, Department 909-621-8887, Fax |
