Biography
Martin Richardson graduated from Imperial College, London, in Physics (1964) and gained his Ph.D in Photon Physics from London University in 1967 as the first student to graduate in lasers under the advisement of the late Daniel Bradley. For his thesis he studied the spectral characteristics of laser modes, investigated non-linear optical processes in dense plasmas and developed a new high power dual frequency laser. Although lasers were then still considered ‘a solution looking for a problem’, after the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize to Townes, Prokhorov and Basov for inventing the concept of the laser, many new laser research teams were being created worldwide. Richardson joined one of the first laser groups investigating laser and plasmas in the Division of Gerhardt Herzberg at the National Research Council Laboratories in Ottawa. Mode-locking as a technique for creating ultrashort laser pulses had just been invented, and he was the first to create plasmas in gases by amplified single ultrashort laser pulses. He stayed at NRC until 1979, making contributions to the development of new lasers, including patents on the discharge-pumped CO2 laser that launched the Lumonics corporation, nonlinear optics, mid-IR laser selective dissociation of molecules, the precursor to laser isotope separation, and the development of ultra-fast optical diagnostics. His work on laser-produced plasmas lead to the creation of the first Canadian team focused on laser fusion. Collaborations with the Lebedev Institute resulted in the development of the picosecond streak camera. In 1974 Richardson spent five months in the Soviet Union in the laboratories of Alexandr Prokhorov at the Lebedev Institute.
In 1980 he joined the University of Rochester where he worked for nine years as group leader for laser fusion experiments for the then new 24-beam OMEGA laser system at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. He also held an adjunct faculty in the Institute of Optics. While at Rochester he was also involved in x-ray laser and laser-plasma x-ray spectroscopy investigations.
In 1990 he and William Silfvast established the Laser Plasma Laboratory at CREOL, the Center of Research in Electro-Optics & Lasers at UCF, developing research programs in ultrafast laser development, laser-plasma studies, EUV/X-ray lithography and microscopy and laser materials processing. These research activities expanded to include femtosecond laser structuring of materials, laser spectroscopy and sensing and high-intensity laser filamentation studies in the atmosphere. In 2003 he was appointed the Northrop Grumman Professor of X-ray Photonics as part of major $24M donation to UCF. He was made a Trustee Chair of the University in 2006, and appointed as the first and founding director of the Townes Laser Institute in 2007.
Professor Richardson has throughout his career taken an intense interest in the education of his students. In Canada he introduced schemes through which students from Canadian universities could study for their Ph.D’s at NRC-Canada. He directs an NSF International REU program, and has initiated an Atlantis program for students to obtain a international MS degree between UCF and the universities of Bordeaux, Jena and Clemson. Some of his students gain co-tutelle Ph.D degrees with the University of Bordeaux. He is particularly interested in advancing science in under-developed countries, and in enabling equal rights for women through science.
Professor Richardson has held visiting scientific positions at the Max Born Institute in Berlin, the Institute for Laser Engineering (ILE) Osaka University, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, and other institutions in Australia, Canada, France, Qatar and the former Soviet Union. He has published over 400 scientific articles in professional scientific journals, and has presented numerous invited and plenary talks. He holds ~ 20 patents, with several pending and has chaired many international conferences including IQEC, ICHSP, and several SPIE meetings. He is a former Associate Editor of JQE, a recipient of the Schardin Medal, and a Fellow of OSA.
Awards & Honors
- Fellow of AAAS
- American Physical Society (APS) Fellow
- International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Fellow
- IEEE Photonics Society Fellow
- Optical Society of America (OSA) Fellow
- 2017 Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair
- 2016 Andrew Main Lecture, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Alberta Edmonton
- 2016 Invited Speaker, Russian Academy of Sciences, 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexandr Prokhorov
- 2016 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2015 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2015 Fulbright-Tocqueville Professorship (2016)
- 2015 Fellow, Institute of Physics (IoP), London, U.K
- 2014 Jefferson Science Fellowship, National Academy of Sciences at t U.S. State Department
- 2014 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2014 University Trustee Chair (renewal)
- 2014 Research Incentive Award (RIA)
- 2014 Jefferson Fellowship
- 2013 Docteur Honoris Causa Université de Bordeaux
- 2013 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2013 SPIE Harold E Edgerton Award
- 2013 Harold E. Edgerton Award
- 2012 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2012 Pegasus Professor Award
- 2012 Sustaining Member Canadian Association of Physicists
- 2011 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2010 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2009 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2008 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2007 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2007 Pegasus Professor Award
- 2007 Director The Townes Laser Institute
- 2006 Office of Research & Commercialization Millionaire’s Club
- 2006 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2006 University Trustee Chair
- 2006 Researcher of the Year
- 2006 Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant
- 2005 UCF Millionaires Club
- 2005 Research Incentive Award
- 2000 Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) Award
- 1998 Professorial Excellence Program (PEP) Award
- 1995 IR&D 100 Award
- 1990 Fellow, Japanese Society for Promotion of Science
- 1976 Schardin Medal, German Physical Society
Research Group
Conducting research on X-ray and EUV optics and sources, X-ray microscopy, laser-aided material processing, and laser generated plasmas.
Graduate Students
James Brutus
Optics M.S.
Joshua Bryan
Physics Ph.D.
Alexander Sergeevich Malyk
Optics Ph.D.
Max Schneiderman
Optics Ph.D.
Publications
Myungkoo Kang, Brandon M. Triplett, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Skylar Deckoff-Jones, Cesar Blanco, Mia Truman, Elena Shirshneva Vashchenko, Justin Cook, Qingyang Du, Tushar S. Karnik, Cosmin-Constantine Popescu, Anna Zachariou, Yifei Zhang, Casey M. Schwarz, Sensong An, Clayton Fowler, Hualiang Zhang, Ivan Divliansky, Leonid B. Glebov, Martin C. Richardson, Anuradha M. Agarwal, Tian Gu, Clara Rivero-Baleine, Juejun Hu, and Kathleen A. Richardson "Photochemically-Engineered Programmable Large-Area Conformal Arsenic Sulfide Micro-Gratings for Hybrid Diffractive-Refractive Infrared Platforms" Adv. Photonics Research 5 (1) 2300241 (2024) (2024) PDF
Cook, J (Cook, Justin) [1] , [2] ; Sincore, A (Sincore, Alex) [1] , [3] ; Vail, N (Vail, Nicholas) [1] ; Krämer, RG (Kraemer, Ria G.) [4] ; Goebel, TA (Goebel, Thorsten a.) [4] , [5] ; Roumayah, P (Roumayah, Patrick) [1] , [6] ; Bryan, J (Bryan, Joshua) [1] ; Bodnar, N (Bodnar, Nathan) [1] ; Nolte, S (Nolte, Stefan) [4] ; Richardson, M (Richardson, Martin) [1] "100 W, tunable in- band thulium fiber amplifier pumped by incoherently combined 1.9 µm fiber lasers" 31(18)pp.29245-29254 (2023)
J. S. Lane, J. Cook, M. Richardson, B. F. Akers, "‘’Numerical simulation of steady-state thermal blooming with natural convection ‘’," Applied Optics, 2092 62, 8 (2023) (2023)
Roumayah, P (Roumayah, Patrick) [1] ; Anderson, B (Anderson, Brian) [2] ; Pulford, B (Pulford, Benjamin) [2] ; Cook, J (Cook, Justin) [1] ; Richardson, M (Richardson, Martin) [1] "Cladding-pumped Raman laser with M2 of 1.3 and 400 mu J first Stokes energy" Journal of the Optical Society of America B-Optical Physics (2023)
O. A. Hurricane, A. L. Kritcher, A. B. Zylstra, D. A. Callahan,……….M.Richardson, …..(~1300 authors) "“Lawson Criterion for Ignition Exceeded in an Inertial Fusion Experiment”,." Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)
J. Cook, M. Chazot, A. Kostogiannes, R. Sharma, C. Feit, J. Sosa, P. Banerjee, M. Richardson, K.A. Richardson, and K.L. Schepler "Optically active Fe2+ -doped ZnSe particles in a chalcogenide glass matrix" Optical Materials Express, 12(4), pp. 1555-1563 (2022) PDF
J. Coffaro, M. Richardson, R. Bernath and R. Crabbs "Sonic anemometer data processing for comparison to optical turbulence theory and simulation" Journal of the Optical Society of America A-Optics Image Science and Vision, 39(4), pp. 643-654 (2022)
Chazot, M.; Kostogiannes, A.; Julian, M.; Feit, C.; Sosa, J.; Kang, M.; Blanco, C.; Cook, J.; Rodriguez, V.; Adamietz, F.; Verreault, D.; Banerjee, P.; Schepler, K.; Richardson, M. C. & Richardson, K. A. "Enhancement of ZnSe stability during optical composite processing via atomic layer deposition" Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 2021, 121259 (2022) PDF
M. Chazot, A. Kostogiannes, M. Julian, C. Feit, J Sosa, M. Kang, C. Blanco, J. Cook, V.Rodriguez, F. Adamietz, D. Verreault, P. Banerjee, K. Schepler, M.C. Richardson and K.A. Richardson "Enhancement of ZnSe stability during optical composite processing via Atomic Layer Deposition" Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 576, A. 121259 (2021) PDF
S. Sarang and M.C. Richardson "Power Scaling of CW Crystalline OPOs and Raman Lasers" Photonics, 8(12), A. 565 (2021)
J. Cook, P. Roumayah, D.J. Shin, J. Thompson, A. Sincore, N. Vail, N. Bodnar and M.C. Richardson "Narrow linewidth 80 W tunable thulium-doped fiber laser" Optics and Laser Technology, 146, A. 107568 (2021)
J. Pena, H. Kerrigan and M. Richardson "Shockwave enhancement from temporally separated filaments interacting with a water droplet" Journal of the Optical Society of America B-Optical Physics, 38(8), pp. 2437-2442 (2021)
M. Masnavi and M. Richardson "Spectroscopic Studies of Laser-Based Far-Ultraviolet Plasma Light Source" Applied Sciences-Basel, 11(15), A. 6919 (2021)
H. Kerrigan, M. Masnavi, R. Bernath, S.R. Fairchild and M. Richardson "Laser-plasma coupling for enhanced ablation of GaAs with combined femtosecond and nanosecond pulses" Optics Express, 29(12), pp. 18481-18494 (2021)
D. Thul, R. Bernath, N. Bodnar, H. Kerrigan, D. Reyes, J. Pena, P. Roumayah, L. Shah, D. Maukonen, J. Bradford, M. Baudelet, S.R. Fairchild and M.C. Richardson "The mobile ultrafast high energy laser facility - A new facility for high-intensity atmospheric laser propagation studies" Optics and Lasers in Engineering, 140, A. 106519 (2021)
M. Chazot, C. Arias, M. Kang, C. Blanco, A. Kostogiannes, J. Cook, A. Yadav, V. Rodriguez, F. Adamietz, D. Verreault, S. Danto, T. Loretz, A. Seddon, D. Furniss, K. Schepler, M.C. Richardson and K.A. Richardson "Investigation of ZnSe stability and dissolution behavior in As-S-Se chalcogenide glasses" Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 555, A. 120619 (2021) PDF
D. Reyes, J. Pena, W. Walasik, N. Litchinitser, S.R. Fairchild and M.C. Richardson "Filament conductivity enhancement through nonlinear beam interaction" Optics Express, 28(18), pp. 26764-26773 (2020)
D. Thul, M.C. Richardson and S. Rostami Fairchild "Spatially resolved filament wavefront dynamics" Scientific Reports, 10(1), A. 8920 (2020)
S. Gausmann, J. Enrique Antonio-Lopez, J. Anderson, S. Wittek, Z. Sanjabi Eznaveh, H. J. Jang, J. Cook, Md. S. Habib, M. C. Richardson, R. Amezcua-Correa, and A. Schülzgen "S2 measurements showing suppression of higher order modes in confined rare earth doped large core fibers" Journal of Lightwave Technology, 38(7), pp. 1953-1958 (2020) PDF
I. Mingareev, M. Kang, M. Truman, J. Qin, G.F. Yin, J.J. Hu, C.M. Schwarz, I.B. Murray, M.C. Richardson and K.A. Richardson "Spatial tailoring of the refractive index in infrared glass-ceramic films enabled by direct laser writing " Optics and Laser Technology, 126, A. 106058 (2020) PDF
Alumni
PhD
Jessica Peña, Optics Ph.D., Summer 2022Justin Cook, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2021
Haley Kerrigan, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2021
Danielle Reyes, Physics Ph.D., Fall 2020
Patrick Roumayah, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2020
Daniel Thul, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2020
Ali Abdulfattah, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Spring 2020
Melissa Beason, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Fall 2018
Alex Sincore, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2018
Nathan Bodnar, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Summer 2018
Joshua Bradford, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2018
Jonathan Torres, Mechanical Engineering Ph.D., Spring 2018
John Szilagyi, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Summer 2017
CheonHa Jeon, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2016
Benjamin Webb, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2016
Khan Lim, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2014
Mark Ramme, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Summer 2013
Andreas Vaupel, Optics Ph.D., Summer 2013
Christina C.C. Willis, Optics Ph.D., Summer 2013
Pankaj Kadwani, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2013
Yuan Liu, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2013
Robert Sims, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2013
Matthew Weidman, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2012
Christopher Brown, Physics Ph.D., Spring 2011
Michaël Hemmer, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2011
Ty Olmstead, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2011
Troy Anderson, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2010
Ji Yeon Choi, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2009
Tim McComb, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2009
Arnaud Royon, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2009
Robert Bernath, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Spring 2007
Simi George, Physics Ph.D., Spring 2007
Chiew-Seng Koay, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2006
Kazutoshi Takenoshita, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Spring 2006
Christian Keyser, Physics Ph.D., Spring 2005
Arnaud Zoubir, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2004
Ma'an Raja Al-Ani, Physics Ph.D., Fall 2001
Lawrence Shah, Physics Ph.D., Spring 2001
Dennis A. Hammons, Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Spring 2000
Steven Grantham, Optics Ph.D., Spring 1999
Jason M. Eichenholz, Optics Ph.D., Spring 1998
Feng Jin, Physics Ph.D., Spring 1995