From astrocombs to AC/DC — a review of recent and current research in the Ultrafast Optics Group

Ultrafast lasers offer exciting solutions to some unique problems in metrology, imaging and spectroscopy.

In this talk, I will review new sources and measurement capabilities developed in the Ultrafast Optics Group. Amongst these I will concentrate on a few topics, including: the development of laser frequency combs for distance metrology, providing high speed absolute length measurements to a few nm precision; broadband multi-GHz laser frequency combs for calibrating spectrographs in the world's largest telescopes, including the ELT; widely tunable ultrafast optical parametric oscillators for mid-infrared spectroscopy and sensing; and miniature GHz-class femtosecond lasers, with potential applications in quantum optics and quantum timing and navigation.

As if this wasn’t already enough, there will be the (almost) world premiere of a recording of AC/DC using a Ti:sapphire laser frequency comb, and perhaps even some embarrassing vintage photographs of the speaker if I can find them!