Two of the winners of the Dean's Outstanding Staff Awards are colleagues in the Department of Physics.

Clay Daetwyler of Lecture Demonstration was selected in the non-exempt category.
Donna Hammer of MRSEC was selected on the exempt side.

The awards carry a cash value of $1,000 and will be presented at the 21^st Annual Spring Academic Festival on Friday, April 24, 2009, at 3:00 p.m., in the Rotunda of the Mathematics Building. Refreshments will be served.

Congratulations to Clay and Donna for this well-earned recognition! And thanks to all the hardworking, dedicated employees who make our Department a wonderful place!

Patrick O’Shea, Physics Affiliate Professor, has been selected as a 2009-2010 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.  This program honors members of the College Park faculty who have demonstrated outstanding scholarly achievement along with equally outstanding accomplishments as teachers.  O’Shea is also serving as Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

James Hubert Blake High School students James Gonzales and James Parker recently became “published” authors in theoretical physics as coauthors of 4D, N = 1 Supersymmetry Genomics (I), which is a mathematically derived supersymetric relationship between specific particles.

Mr.Gonzales and Mr. Parker participated in the Student Summer Theoretical Physics Research Session (SSTPRS) at the University of Maryland with Dr. James Gates Jr. - John S. Toll Professor & Director of Center for String & Particle Theory.

Twelve students from Maryland and the University of Iowa cooperated in the research on string theory for two months during the summer. During the first month the students learned advanced math concepts from Dr. Gates and then applied these concepts to their research during the second month.

Both Blake students worked diligently and made a valuable contribution to the research and where the only high school students to coauthor the article. Mr. Parker said “it was a great learning experience to work with Dr. Gates”.

Their paper can be viewed at http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3830.  ArXiv is the premiere website in the world where each day the world’s community of theoretical physicists publicize their work.

Please bookmark the campus Recovery Act Information page:

www.umresearch.umd.edu/recovery

and the departmental page:

http://umdphysics.umd.edu/index.php/services/2009-stimulus-information.html

By: Ki-Yong Kim

Sandwiched between the traditional optical and microwave regimes, far infrared or terahertz (THz) frequency (1 THz = 10¹² Hz) has recently drawn special attention due to its potential for molecular sensing, biomedical imaging and spectroscopy, security scanners, and plasma diagnostics. These applications provide strong motivation to advance the state of the art in THz source development. In particular, large-scale electron accelerators such as synchrotrons and free electron lasers are currently available to produce THz radiation energy in excess of several microjoule per pulse. However, due to its large cost to build those facilities and thereby limited access, there is a present and growing need to realize such strong THz generation at the tabletop scale. In this effort, we have recently demonstrated a high-energy (>5 microjoule), super-broadband (>75 THz), tabletop THz source via ultrafast photoionization in gases [1].

In this scheme, an ultrafast pulsed laser’s fundamental and second harmonic fields are mixed in a gas of atoms or molecules, causing them to ionize. Microscopically, the laser fields act to suppress the atom’s or molecule’s Coulomb potential barrier, and, via rapid tunneling ionization, bound electrons are freed. The electrons, once liberated, oscillate at the laser frequencies, and also drift away from their parent ions at velocities determined by the laser field amplitudes and the relative phase between the two laser fields. Depending on the relative phase, symmetry can be broken to produce a net directional electron current. As this current occurs on the timescale of photoionization, for sub-picosecond lasers, it can generate electromagnetic radiation at THz frequencies.

This THz generation mechanism turns out to be closely related to the mechanism used to explain high harmonic generation (HHG) in gases, as both processes originate from a common source, that is, a nonlinear electron current. The electrons re-colliding with the parent ions are responsible for HHG, whereas the electrons drifting away from the ions without experiencing re-scattering ions account for THz generation. As demonstrated experimentally [1], the generated THz and third-harmonic are strongly correlated in such a way that changing the relative phase can effectively switch the emission between THz and harmonics. This provides the basis to coherently control electromagnetic radiation in a broad spectral range, from THz to extreme ultraviolet.

Now, the next step is to scale up the laser power to produce even more powerful THz radiation. Using the Maryland’s 30 terawatt (TW) laser, we anticipate producing an unprecedented millijoule level of THz radiation. Such radiation may allow us to observe extreme nonlinear THz phenomena in a university laboratory.

[1]  K. Y. Kim et al., Nature Photon. 2, 605 (2008).