Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland demonstrated chirped pulse amplification: stretch a short optical pulse, amplify it while its peak power is lower, then recompress it. This addresses the self-focusing that limits direct amplification of an intense short optical pulse. Their 1985 system used an optical fiber for stretching and a diffraction grating compressor after amplification. The approach separates the gain in energy from the largest peak power inside the amplifier.[ref]
Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses by Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou. Corrected 1985 paper, opening self-focusing motivation and stretch–amplify–compress apparatus
A physicist researching laser physics.[ref]
The first laser pixels by École polytechnique. Independent professional identity
Portrait of Gérard Mourou
. Jérémy Barande / École polytechnique; existing Commons crop. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic, not a France-ported variant; Flickr license review recorded., via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Articles by others on the same topic
Gérard Mourou is a French physicist renowned for his contributions to the field of laser technology. He is particularly celebrated for his development of the technique known as "chirped pulse amplification" (CPA), which has significantly advanced the capability and performance of high-intensity pulsed lasers. This groundbreaking work allows for the generation of ultra-short laser pulses with high energy, contributing to various applications in areas such as medicine, material science, and fundamental physics.