THE IRISH woman who developed the world’s fastest lasers will describe her research this evening when she delivers a free public talk at the RDS in Dublin.
Prof Margaret Murnane is the 2011 recipient of the RDS/ Irish TimesBoyle Medal for Scientific Excellence. The Boyle Medal presentation takes place tonight before she delivers her address as a Boyle Medal Laureate. She will also receive a cash prize of €20,000.
She is a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she works in the Jila research institute.
In her address Prof Murnane will talk about the development of a laser that pulses faster than electrons spinning around an atom can move. But she will also talk about what is needed to be a successful scientist. “We talk about science as learning a lot of facts and nothing more than that, but it is a really creative process,” she said in advance of her talk.
It is driven forward by new ideas and new thinking. People have to work together as a team to tackle societal challenges like developing renewable energy resources.
Research was also increasingly multidisciplinary with physical scientists working with engineers and others to develop ideas and make them a reality. It was also an internationalised activity with working groups involving people from many countries. “Science is global and the challenges we face are global,” she said.
Prof Murnane will also talk about the development of the fastest lasers in the world. Instead of light, her lasers use x-ray beams that pulse in extremely short flashes of energy.
The length of pulse from her lasers was measured in “attoseconds”, a period of time so short it was impossible to imagine, she said. An attosecond is to a second what a second is to more than the age of the universe.
“It is the fastest controlled event that has ever been produced,” she said. “You don’t actually need faster pulsed lasers because the electrons around an atom don’t move that fast.”
She developed these incredibly fast lasers but she also brought them down in both price and size, making it possible for researchers to buy them as table-top devices affordable to any lab.
The work may seem obscure but she imagines a time in the not too distant future when pulsed x-ray lasers might be used by dentists to take extremely precise and clear dental x-rays.
Prof Murnane’s Boyle Medal presentation and talk start at 7pm. Places are free and can be booked on science@rds.ie or by ringing 01-2407289.