My first steps at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Physics began 28 years ago in July 1993. Dr. Bill Sibley, at that time UAB Vice President for Academic Affairs and physics faculty member, invited me to UAB and charged me with establishing a laser lab. Soon after that invitation, I remember sitting at one of the Department of Physics offices with Dr. Chris Lawson and Dr. David Shealy, chair of the department at the time, on the recently opened third floor of Campbell Hall, and, together, we generated technical drawings of the future Laser and Nonlinear Optics Labs. We intended to build the labs on the fourth floor during the upcoming remodeling of the then-vacant building shell located on the fourth floor of Campbell Hall.
After several decades of teaching and researching within the Department of Physics, I am excited for a big day in Fall 2023 when the department, together with the departments of Chemistry and Biology, will be relocated to a modern science and engineering building. The Science and Engineering Complex will provide cutting-edge instructional and research laboratories and will be a magnet for excellent students and faculty. The research missions of these departments and the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) as a whole will be strongly advanced due to a modern and highly collaborative space enabling synergetic relationships between our departments, as well as with other departments, clinical units, colleges, and universities. It is expected that the new complex will enable the three basic science departments to attract new talent, retain existing talent, and win new research funding not possible without this infrastructure investment.
The UAB and CAS investment in the new Science and Engineering Complex was an instrumental component of a $25 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center for Infrared-driven Intense-field Science (IRIS) project recently submitted by 11 universities led by the University of Central Florida. The project became one of the NSF finalists and the final decision is expected soon.
The UAB Department of Physics’ world-leading expertise and patented technology of novel infrared gain materials and lasers opened the pathway for the design of new highly intense mid-long-wavelength infrared (3-10 um) lasers. Many physical phenomena performed with intense laser pulses—including electron acceleration and the production of short wavelength X-rays—favor lasers with wavelengths longer than the widely available, conventional near-infrared (~1 um) solid-state lasers. Conquering these so-called scaling laws will provide for laboratory tabletop plasma formation and particle acceleration, novel materials modifications, and attosecond (10-18 s) molecular dynamics investigations in university laboratory settings. The long-wavelength regime represents an unexplored scientific frontier that will reveal new phenomena; generate a significant impact across STEM fields; and bring deep insight into atomic, molecular, plasma, and material sciences.
The UAB Department of Physics and IRIS activities of integrated research, optical development, and education are important steps in reestablishing the United States’ presence in the international landscape of high power laser activities. The commercialization of the infrared laser technology will make them available for new discoveries by many more scientists, including biologists, chemists, materials scientists, and medical doctors.
Sergey Mirov, Ph.D., is University Professor of Physics. The groundbreaking of the UAB Science and Engineering Complex will be held on Septembter 9, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. Learn more about the new building at uab.edu/cas/building.
