Paul Corkum


Paul Bruce Corkum is a :Category:Canadian physicists|Canadian physicist specializing in attosecond physics and laser science. He holds a joint University of Ottawa–NRC chair in Attosecond Photonics. He is one of the students of strong field atomic physics, i.e. atoms and plasmas in super-intense laser fields.

Biography and research

Corkum was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He obtained his BSc from Acadia University, Nova Scotia, and his MSc and PhD in theoretical physics from Lehigh University, Pennsylvania. He won several awards for his work on laser science.
Corkum is both a theorist and an experimentalist. In the 1980s he developed a model of the ionization of atoms and on this basis proposed a new approach to making X-ray lasers. OFI lasers are today one of the most important developments in X-ray laser research.
In the early 1990s in strong field atomic physics there were discoveries of high harmonic generation and correlated double ionization. Corkum's Recollision Electron Model served as the basis for the generation of attosecond pulses from lasers. With this method in 2001 Corkum with colleagues in Vienna succeeded in demonstrating for the first time laser pulse lengths lasting less than 1 femtosecond. The method was used for the generation of higher harmonics and for exploration of atoms and molecules in the angstrom range and below.
Corkum's recollision electron physics has led to many advances in understanding the interactions among coherent electrons, coherent light, and coherent atoms or molecules. The recollision electron can be thought of as an electron interferometer built by laser light generated from atoms or molecules. As an interferometer, the recollision electron can be used to measure atomic and molecular orbitals by means of interfering waves from the bound electrons and the recollision electrons.
From 1997 to 2009, he was the adjunct professor of physics at McMaster University.

Awards