Margaret Murnane Explained

Margaret M. Murnane
Birth Date:23 January 1959
Birth Place:County Limerick, Ireland
Fields:Physics
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Known For:Founder of the field of ultrafast x-ray science
KMLabs Co-founder
Spouse:Physicist Henry Kapteyn
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Margaret Mary Murnane NAS AAA&S (born 23 January 1959) is an Irish physicist, who served as a distinguished professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, having moved there in 1999, with past positions at the University of Michigan and Washington State University. She is currently Director of the STROBE NSF Science and Technology Center and is among the foremost active researchers in laser science and technology. Her interests and research contributions span topics including atomic, molecular, and optical physics, nanoscience, laser technology, materials and chemical dynamics, plasma physics, and imaging science. Her work has earned her multiple awards[1] [2] [3] including the MacArthur Fellowship award in 2000, the Frederic Ives Medal/Quinn Prize in 2017, the highest award of The Optical Society, and the 2021 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics.

Early life

Born and raised in County Limerick, Ireland, Murnane became interested in physics through her father who was a primary school teacher. She received her B.A. and M.S. from University College, Cork. She moved to the United States to study at the University of California at Berkeley where she earned her PhD in 1989 under Roger Falcone.[4] She is married to physics professor Henry Kapteyn. They work together and operate their own lab at JILA at the University of Colorado.[5]

Career

Murnane has co-authored more than 500 articles in peer reviewed journals, with her work receiving around 35000 citations.[6] Dr. Murnane is a founder of the field of ultrafast X-ray science, having made transformational contributions to this area of research in every decade since the 1980s. She is also currently one of the most-accomplished woman laboratory experimental physicists in the U.S., further distinguished by having independently developed her university-based laboratory effort with Prof. Kapteyn.[7]

In their lab, Murnane, Kapteyn, and their students make lasers whose beams flash like a strobe light – except that each flash is a trillion times faster. These lasers, like camera flashes, make it possible to record the motions of atoms in chemical reactions, and of atoms and electrons in materials systems. Some of her lasers can generate pulses of less than 10 femtoseconds.[8] The very high peak power of these ultrashort laser pulses makes it possible to coherently upconvert light to much shorter wavelengths, in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray region of the spectrum. This high harmonic generation process makes possible for the first time a tabletop-scale X-ray laser light source.

Prof. Murnane was the first to explore the use of femtosecond lasers for x-ray generation, and has made substantive pioneering contributions to many aspects of this area of research, including the science and fundamental understanding of the high harmonic process, the laser technology required to use this process to implement practical tabletop light sources for applications, and in applying this new source to make fundamental discoveries in areas ranging from basic atomic and chemical dynamics, to materials dynamics, to nanoimaging. She is also a founder the area now known as experimental "Attosecond Science," having performed foundational experiments that for the first time clearly demonstrated the ability to manipulate electron dynamics with attosecond precision.[9]

She is also the co-founder of the laser company KMLabs, Inc.,[10] for which Intel Capital is a co-investor,[11] and which has commercialized these technologies for research and possible industrial applications in nanometrology.

Honors

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Murnane, Margaret M.. National Academy of Sciences. 16 April 2011.
  2. Web site: 1990 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award Recipient. American Physical Society. 16 April 2011.
  3. Web site: 1997 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award Recipient. American Physical Society. 16 April 2011.
  4. Web site: Zierler . David . Margaret Murnane . Oral History Interviews . 8 April 2022 . 1 October 2023.
  5. Davis . T. H. . Profile of Margaret M. Murnane. 10.1073/pnas.0606322103 . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 103 . 36 . 13276–13278 . 2006 . 16938855 . 1569154 . 2006PNAS..10313276D . free .
  6. Web site: Margaret Murnane Google Scholar profile . University of Colorado at Boulder . 1 October 2018.
  7. This can be determined through a survey and literature search for current members of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as recipients of the Franklin Institute Awards.
  8. Optics Letters 19(15), 1149–1151 (1994).
  9. Physical Review A 58(1), R30-R33 (1998); Nature 406(6792), 164–166 (2000). dx.doi.org/10.1038/35018029
  10. Web site: Home.
  11. Web site: Intel backs KMLabs' ultrafast laser development.
  12. Web site: Margaret M. Murnane. 25 January 2020.
  13. News: Professor Margaret Murnane Wins Highest Medal from The Optical Society. 2017-02-20. Physics. 2018-04-22. en.
  14. Web site: Three new honorary doctorates in Science and Technology – Uppsala University, Sweden. uu.se. 2 February 2016.
  15. Web site: Registrar : Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland. www.tcd.ie. 2020-01-07.
  16. Web site: The 2013 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics: Margaret M. Murnane. The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics. 2020-07-13.
  17. https://www.rds.ie/Ireland-s-Philanthropic-Society/Our-Work/Projects/RDS-Irish-Times-Boyle-Medal-for-Scientific-Excelle/Boyle-Medal-Laureates Boyle Medal Laureates
  18. Web site: R. W. Wood Prize. The Optical Society. 10 May 2020.
  19. Web site: CU Professor Margaret Murnane Honored By National Women's Science Organization . University of Colorado at Boulder . 1 November 2007 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070317171142/http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2007/103.html . 17 March 2007 . dead .
  20. Web site: Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter M. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 16 April 2011.

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