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Speaker: Professor A K Kar, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot Watt University
Date: 13 May 2009
Time: 2pm
Venue: Seminar Room B53
Abstract
The development of highly stable lasers revolutionised the conventional spectroscopy that has been known for more than a century. Spectroscopy is now performed with femtosecond rainbows scientifically known as white light continuum which is being generated by focusing an intense laser pulse in a condensed media. The physics of white light continuum generation itself is an exciting field of research. Various nonlinear interactions between ultrashort pulses with linear and nonlinear materials have opened up the possibility of developing compact photonic devices. In this talk I will describe how the simple light matter interactions have been successfully utilised for both fundamental semiconductor studies which underpins the current optoelectronic devices and the compact photonic devices for future telecom, sensing and biomedical applications.
Biography
Professor Ajoy Kar has over 25 years of experience in studies of the nonlinear optical properties of materials and their applications. After completing his MSc at Delhi he joined the University of Essex where he developed his interest in Lasers and Nonlinear Optics. Currently he is a professor in the department of physics at Heriot Watt University. His current projects involve amplifiers for telecommunications, ultrafast all-optical switching in novel optical fibres, ultrafast optical nonlinearities in semiconductors that should result in novel optoelectronic devices, generation and propagation of white light continuum through atmosphere for novel LIDAR applications. He has published more than 100 papers in refereed journals and presented numerous papers at various international conferences. He has been very successful in securing research grants which amount to more that £7.0 million including funding from EPSRC, MoD, QinetiQ, DSTL and NATO. He has produced 13 PhDs and currently runs a group of seven people including PhDs and postdocs. He has international research collaboration with Universities in USA, Japan, Greece, France and Italy. He is also the course director of MSc in Optoelectronics and Laser Devices and has developed distance learning modules for the MSc with WebCT. His current international research and teaching activities are being funded by UKIERI, Royal Society, Royal Society of Edinburgh and Diwia foundations.