What's New?

New content and hot topics in the JRM Lab.

Hot Topics

We are grateful to K-State College of Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Chris Culbertson for providing the funding and leadership that led to a deferred maintenance award for our department. The cooling system replacement in the JRM Lab will allow our laser systems to run much more efficiently and effectively resulting in greatly improved experiments for Kansas State University students, staff, and faculty.
Artem Rudenko, professor of physics and a new director of the JRM Laboratory, has been named the Cortelyou-Rust Chair in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Physics. The professorship at K-State recognizes individuals who have made a major and substantial impact on their field through research and teaching and continue to do so.
We also have a new department head. Tim Bolton, William and Joan Porter professor of physics, takes the reins from Brett DePaola. Bolton is an experimental high-energy physicist who has spent his research career performing experiments that have probed properties of the weak nuclear force. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from Stanford University in 1982 and his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.
Congratulations to our theorist Loren Greenman for earning tenure and promotion to associate professor.
Professor Daniel Rolles will be on sabbatical during the 2022-2023 academic year. See the K-State Today press release for the full list of university faculty doing so.
The latest edition of the Division of Laser Science newsletter is available.

Local Research in the News

The Kansas State University College of Arts and Sciences has presented its 2022 Karen Ann Griffith Research Award to the James R. Macdonald Laboratory. The award will support further research endeavors by the investigators at the laboratory, which is one of the most active centers for atomic, molecular and optical physics in the U.S. The lab's grant funding has been repeatedly renewed for nearly 50 years, most recently at $2.65 million per year.
A reception for lab personnel and University dignitaries will be held at the Alumni Center on Thursday, 07 April at 3:30 pm. Please be sure to RSVP to your e-mailed invitation.
A recent Nature Physics paper on Coulomb explosion imaging from K-State researchers and their colleagues is featured in K-State and Goethe Frankfurt press releases.
Thanks to a DOE Graduate Student Research Program, our Kurtis Borne will study at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Borne will use the LCLS-II Free Electron Laser facility there.
K-State physicists have taken extremely fast snapshots of light-induced molecular ring-opening reactions - similar to those that help a human body produce vitamin D from sunlight. The research is published in Nature Chemistry and more popularly explained in a K-State press release.
The APS online magazine Physics featured an article co-authored by our student Xiang Li. Their story is titled "Jumpstarting Electron Motion in Molecules.

Web Site Updates

Our Publications page now has a running report of the 2022 papers published to date, and the 2021 papers have been archived. Links to all of the publications lists on the sitemap have been updated accordingly.
See our preparations for the new FLAME laser, the Femtosecond LAser for Multicolor Experiments, in a new photo gallery.
James R. Macdonald Laboratory theoretical physicist Uwe Thumm has been named a University Distinguished Professor. We have featured Uwe and his work as a feature story on the lab's home page. Uwe joins a long line of Physics professors who have been so honored. Current Distinguished Professors in the Physics department include Itzik Ben-Itzhak, Brett Esry, CD Lin, Bharat Ratra and Chris Sorenson. Retired or otherwise past professors include Lew Cocke, Pat Richard, Dean Zollman, Talat Rahman and Bill Reay. Clearly, we're doing something right!
See all the latest news from the KSU Physics Department, including the latest edition of the departmental newsletter.