Physicist Sergey Mirov wins 2009 Ireland Award for Scholarly Distinction

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The path to discovery is as important and exciting as the breakthrough itself, according to Sergey Mirov, Ph.D.

Physics Professor Sergey Mirov is this year’s recipient of the Carolyn P. and Charles W. Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction for his professional and academic achievements and contributions to the university and local community.
“When you’re moving forward and you suddenly realize how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, it’s the best feeling,” says Mirov, professor of physics and co-director of the Center for Optical Sensors and Spectroscopies. “At the end of the day when you are trying to analyze what has been accomplished, sometimes you see no apparent forward progress. It’s because you chose the wrong path. But what is important is that you’re trying to move forward. Finally, when the efforts reach critical mass and technological leaps are made, it’s very satisfying.”

Mirov and his team of researchers find success more often than not. He has gained worldwide recognition for his groundbreaking research and invention in the fields of laser physics, laser spectroscopy and solid-state physics. Now he is being honored with the 2009 Carolyn P. and Charles W. Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction.

UAB presents the award annually to a full-time faculty member in the schools of Arts & Humanities, Natural Sciences & Mathematics or Social & Behavioral Sciences for their professional and academic achievements and contributions to the university and local community. The prize, made possible by the Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Endowment for Scholarly Distinction, comes with a $5,000 cash award.

“It’s truly a great honor,” Mirov says. “But this award is not only my award. These achievements are the result of really hard work by my associates with great support from the Department of Physics and School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics.”

A dinner and lecture, preceded by cocktails, will be held Thursday, March 5 at 6 p.m. at The Club. Tickets are $20 each. E-mail the UAB Events Office at uabevents@uab.edu for details or to purchase tickets.

Research centerpieces
Mirov has secured numerous patents for his laser technologies with the support of the UAB Research Foundation, and he founded his start-up company Photonics Innovations in 2007. The company is commercializing several revolutionary tunable, middle-infrared laser technologies, including the Optical Nose, which was first chronicled in the UAB Reporter in 2007.

Scientists from the U.S. Air Force visited Mirov’s lab for 10 days this past summer.

“They brought with them powerful pump lasers and calibrated power meters and other instruments, and with our novel laser materials we were able to set-up a world record output power for middle-infrared, tunable lasers,” Mirov says.

“These results opened up a lot of very interesting opportunities, and they basically verified that our progress with the optical nose is in the right direction.”

The Optical Nose has the ability to distinguish particular molecular compounds, which could detect low-level explosives, drugs or biological weapons or catch the early stages of a disease such as diabetes or cancer just by smelling the breath of a human. The recent results on power scaling of middle-infrared lasers have opened up more possibilities, he says.

“These middle-infrared lasers could be used for many different and interesting applications, like a laser scalpel,” Mirov says. “Imagine a hand-held instrument that can be tuned in resonance with water absorption and used for neurosurgery and then de-tuned from the resonance and used as an ordinary surgical knife. That’s one of the possible applications.”

Classroom excellence
David Shealy, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Physics, says Mirov’s accomplishments aren’t limited to the lab.

Shealy says Mirov has demonstrated excellence in teaching and mentoring students. Mirov has directed 21 undergraduate research projects and a dozen more graduate and post-doctoral research associates during his 15-plus year UAB career.

Mirov is quick to give praise to those who work with him in the lab.

“I have five graduate fellows now, and they are doing great work,” Mirov says. “It is very interesting because they stimulate me, and I’m trying to stimulate them. It leads to mutual improvement, I would say. I think that’s the reason why our group is moving forward and trying to put in front of us important scientific physics questions.

“And I think that’s the reason why we are resolving them. We’re finding group solutions.”