Gérard Mourou

Gérard Mourou Albert ( born June 22, 1944 in France ) is a French physicist who deals with laser physics and nonlinear optics.

Mourou studied physics at Grenoble University and graduated from there with a bachelor's degree. In 1967 he moved to the University of Paris in Orsay, where he was graduated in 1970 and received his PhD in 1973. As a post - graduate student he was at San Diego State University in California. From 1979 to 1988 he worked at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics of the New York University of Rochester, where he was group leader of both picosecond physics professor as well. From 1988 he was professor at the University of Michigan, where he was founding director of the 1990 Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. In 1995 he was appointed there to the AD Moore Distinguished University Professor Emeritus. He is director of the Laboratory of Applied Optics ( Laboratoire d' Optique Appliquée, LOA) of the Ecole Polytechnique, ParisTech and the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS ) in Palaiseau.

It deals with ultrashort laser pulses and is with Donna Strickland one of the inventors of the CPA ( Chirped Pulse Amplification ) for generating very short laser pulses of high intensity, which extend into the petawatt range.

In 1994 he was a visiting professor at the Universities of Tokyo and Grenoble.

In 1995 he received the " R. W. Wood Prize ", 2009, " Charles Hard Townes Award "and the 2005 " Willis E. Lamb Award ". He was also awarded the " Harold E. Edgerton Award" of SPIE, the " David Sarnoff Award" of the IEEE and in 2004 with the " IEEE / LEOS Quantum Electronics Award ". He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also Honorary Doctor of companies domiciled in the Canadian city of Quebec Laval University, where he worked temporarily while writing his dissertation.