Donna Strickland

Facts

Donna Strickland

© Nobel Media AB. Photo: A. Mahmoud

Donna Strickland
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018

Born: 27 May 1959, Guelph, Canada

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

Prize motivation: “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses”

Prize share: 1/4

Life

Donna Strickland was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She became interested in laser and electrooptics early and studied at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She pursued her doctoral studies in the U.S. at the University of Rochester, where she did her Nobel Prize awarded work. She obtained her PhD in 1989. She subsequently has worked at Princeton University and since 1997 at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Work

The sharp beams of laser light have given us new opportunities for deepening our knowledge about the world and shaping it. In 1985, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland succeeded in creating ultrashort high-intensity laser pulses without destroying the amplifying material. First they stretched the laser pulses in time to reduce their peak power, then amplified them, and finally compressed them. The intensity of the pulse then increases dramatically. Chirped pulse amplification has many uses, including corrective eye surgeries.

To cite this section
MLA style: Donna Strickland – Facts – 2018. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Tue. 5 Dec 2023. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2018/strickland/facts/>

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