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The Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) is an interdisciplinary research center in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. CUOS was sponsored as a Science and Technology Center by the National Science Foundation during 1990-2001, and as a College of Engineering Center continues its research in ultrafast optics with funding from a variety of government agencies and industry. Its mission is to perform multidisciplinary research in the basic science and technological applications of ultrashort laser pulses, to educate students from a wide variety of backgrounds in the field, and to spur the development of new technologies.

CUOS researchers develop optical instrumentation and techniques to generate, manipulate, and detect ultrashort and ultrahigh-peak-power light pulses. They use these ultrashort pulses to study ultrafast physical phenomena in atomic, nuclear, plasma, and materials physics, in solid-state electronics, in high-energy-density physics, and in biomedicine.

Ultrafast science & technology is one of the most exciting fields in science and engineering today. Ultrashort laser pulses are the shortest controlled bursts of energy ever developed. Optical pulses of a few femtoseconds (10^-15 seconds) duration can be used to probe the fastest events in atomic, molecular, biochemical, and solid-state systems. When amplified to even modest energies, such short pulses can achieve the highest peak powers: the Hercules laser at CUOS holds the world record for on-target laser intensity, at an astonishing 10²² Watts per square centimeter. Ultrashort-pulse fiber lasers enable the highest average powers (100-Watt level) available from pulsed laser systems. These lasers enable a tremendous range of applications in fundamental science and applied technology; further information on these applications may be found on the CUOS Mission and Overview pages, and details of specific research programs may be found under Research Groups.

News: Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source

Researchers in the High Field Science group of the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science have recently used the high-intensity, table-top HERCULES laser to demonstrate X-ray beams with peak spectral brilliance rivaling those generated in expensive and large synchrotron particle accelerators. The National Synchrotron Light Source II, for example, is expected to be a half-mile long and cost more than $900 million to construct. By using the wiggling motion of electrons in a plasma bubble generated by the powerful, ultrashort laser pulse, the researchers produced a bright, collimated beam of X-rays comparable to that produced in a synchrotron facility.

Throughout history, X-ray machines have opened new frontiers in science. Earlier generations illuminated the structure of DNA and brought the first radiographs, which enabled imaging the human body. The X-rays produced by HERCULES are not only bright and energetic, but also have a degree of spatial coherence, allowing phase-contrast imaging of biological samples. This exploits the diffraction of x-rays to form images of the interfaces of soft tissue, rather than the traditional absorption radiograph. In addition to this, the X-ray pulse is expected to be an unprecedented sub-10 fs in duration, which should allow temporal resolution of atomic processes, thus opening up many new possibilities for University researchers.

Researchers at Imperial College London and Instituto Superior Téchnico Lisbon collaborated with U-M on this research, which was published in Nature Physics (Kneip et al. Nat Phys 6, 980-983, 2010).

Research Highlights: Record Terahertz average power generated.

Technology Transfer News: CUOS researchers and their collaborators at M-NIMBS have been awarded a patent for a novel Photonic Crystal Sensor. This device enables the detection of biomolecular binding events with extremely high sensitivity (molecular weights of order 100 D)