On September 10, 2026, we were visited by Charles Durfee, a professor in the Department of Physics at the Colorado School of Mines, who gave the seminar.:
“Controlling nonlinear laser-matter interactions with structured light”
as part of the OP-Sesiones series.
Summary of the talk:
As control over amplified ultrafast pulses becomes more sophisticated, increasing attention has been paid to controlling highly nonlinear laser matter interactions with spatially and spatio-temporally shaped pulses. While active devices such as spatial light modulators can be used for beam shaping, our group at the Colorado School of Mines has taken the approach of maximizing the use of passive optics as a route that is more stable and easily scaled to high energy. In this talk I will review our experimental work on controlling the spin and orbital angular momentum of high-order harmonics (joint work with U. Salamanca). The proposed application of these shaped beams will be illustrated by our work using vortex beams for imaging transient electrostatic discharge plasmas. I will also briefly outline how we have scaled the generation of spatio- temporally tilted pulses for direct acceleration of electrons to relativistic energies.
Thanks to everyone who attended! See you at the next Op-session.
