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News | 25-03-2024

Prof. Clara Saraceno receives the IKZ International Fellowship Award 2024 for oxide and fluoride dielectrics and laser crystals

Oxide and fluoride crystals are pivotal in many different areas of photonics. They are well-suited host materials for laser-active ions, can serve in optical Faraday insulators and also for non-linear frequency conversion of laser radiation, especially in the ultraviolet or mid-infrared spectral range. For all these applications, a large number of established materials is available, but the pursuit of innovative materials with enhanced properties persists, driving ongoing synthesis and exploration efforts. The IKZ has been involved in the growth and validation of various oxide and fluoride crystals for optical applications for decades. The establishment of the Center for Laser Materials (IKZ) in 2016 further expanded these activities.

Prof. Clara Saraceno © puls 2023

The 2024 IKZ International Fellowship Award, endowed with 10,000 euros, will be offered for achievements in the field of oxide and fluoride dielectrics and laser crystals and honors an internationally renowned, outstanding research personality in this field. The aim of the award aims to forge new avenues for research collaborations and future third-party funded projects between IKZ and the awardee.

This year's laureate, Professor Clara Saraceno from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, earns the IKZ Award for her outstanding research activities in the field of crystal-based ultrashort-pulse solid-state lasers with high output power and their application for the generation of terahertz radiation in nonlinear crystals. The collaboration with Prof. Saraceno opens IKZ a promising perspective for joint projects in synthesizing and characterizing crystalline materials required for these applications.

Born in Buenos Aires, Prof. Saraceno pursued her studies in France and earned her doctorate degree on high-power short-pulse lasers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Her dissertation was awarded the QEOD Thesis Prize of the European Physical Society EPS, among others. Following postdoctoral positions at the University of Neuchâtel and ETH Zurich in Switzerland, Clara Saraceno received the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award in 2016 and was appointed a tenure-track professorship at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, tenured in 2020. Among many other awards, she  secured an ERC Starting Grant on novel sources of THz radiation in 2018 and was named an Optica Fellow in 2022.

The award ceremony is scheduled for 15.04.2024, as part of the IKZ International Fellowship Workshop on "Nonlinear crystals for THz, mid-IR, and UV radiation generation".

In addition to the award ceremony for Prof. Clara Saraceno, the program of the two-day workshop on 15./16.04.2024, held in the Max-Born-Saal at the IKZ, will feature further lectures by high-profile international guest speakers on this topic and foster discussions on future collaborations and research projects.

About Clara Saraceno:  https://www.puls.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/puls/aboutus/clarasaraceno.html.de

Contact persons at IKZ:

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