David Hanna

David Colin Hanna ( born December 10, 1941 in Nottingham ) is a British physicist who deals with non-linear optics and laser physics.

Hanna studied mathematics and physics at the University of Cambridge with the conclusion of 1962. Afterwards he was a year in the Marconi Research Laboratories as a trainee in electronics and from 1963 at the University of Southampton in the Department of Electronics, where he received his doctorate in 1967. He was there in 1967 and 1988, Professor Lecturer. From 1989 he was deputy head of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton.

He was a visiting scientist at the Politecnico di Milano (1971 ), at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich (1978 /9), at the Max Born Institute in Berlin ( 2001, 2003 ) and as Carl Zeiss visiting professor at the University of Jena (2006).

He wrote fundamental studies of nonlinear optical processes in atomic gases and vapors, via optical parametric oscillators and nonlinear optical materials with quasi-phase matching. In the field of laser physics, he made ​​contributions to Resonaten Fashion and control and the development of solid state lasers, including fiber lasers and waveguide lasers.

In 2003 he received the Charles Hard Townes Award and the 1993 Max -Born prize. 2000 he received the Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physical Society. He also received a Humboldt Research Award. In 1998 he became a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the Royal Society.

He translated the textbook on laser by Orazio Svelto into English.

Writings

• Nonlinear Optics of Free Atoms and Molecules, Springer, Topics in Current Physics 1980