Harnessing the Power of Lasers: From Basic Research to Applications
Prof. Thomas Walther (TU Darmstadt, Institute for Applied Physics)

The laser is "a solution seeking a problem" - this statement by Theodore Maiman has long proven obsolete. In our group we pursue projects where the laser is either the central element of our investigation or an integral part of the "solution".

In this talk we will give a brief overview of the projects in our group. Specifically, we will discuss three projects in more detail: the first is a collaboration with researchers from GSI geared towards developing laser sources for cooling of highly relativistic ion beams at FAIR/GSI. The second aims at demonstrating for the first time lasing without inversion at UV wavelengths. During the last part of the talk we will detail our efforts in environmental sensing, i.e. a LIDAR for the remote measurement of temperature profiles in the ocean.