Posted on February 21, 2023 in Nanoscience Initiative
An accomplished researcher shows students the power of lasers.
Professor Matthew Sfeir, a member of the Graduate Center’s Chemistry, Physics, and Nanoscience programs who is based at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, wants his students to love lasers as much as he does.
He introduces Nanoscience master’s students to lasers and other cutting-edge topics in his Nano and Micro Photonics courses.
Students in Sfeir’s lab use lasers to research problems in renewable energy, sensing, and light detection. Lasers can heat or cool a material and measure the time it takes to transfer energy with femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) resolution. They can help generate electricity from plastic and produce fuel from water. They can also create quantum states of matter and new colors of light. Many of the lab’s projects also involve nanomaterials, which have sizes and shapes that can be tuned to resonantly interact with visible and infrared light. The research team recently developed next-generation ultrafast laser techniques to facilitate nanomaterials research.