Young Texas A&M Physicist Wins Lomb Award for Research Creating Light Pulses

Alexei Sokolov, an assistant professor of physics at Texas A&M University, has won the Adolph Lomb Medal, honoring him as an outstanding young researcher in optics, the science of light.

The Optical Society of America awards the Lomb Medal annually to a researcher who has made a “noteworthy contribution to optics” before age 30.

Sokolov, who is now 32, won for past research that shows that oscillating molecules can produce ultra-short light pulses. Scientists need to produce ever-shorter light pulses so they can study ever-faster processes in atoms and molecules.

Using laser fields to make deuterium molecules vibrate, Sokolov and his co-workers discovered a way to create pulses of light shorter than a femtosecond. Light pulses had not before been produced by this process of “highly coherent molecular motion.”

Sokolov’s research, most of which he completed while at Stanford University, was published in Physical Review Letters and other journals. Sokolov continues to publish new findings.

The Adolph Lomb award includes a silver medal and a $1,500 prize. Sokolov will claim the award in October at an Optical Society of America ceremony in Tucson.

Contact: Mark Minton, Communications Specialist, Texas A&M University College of Science (979) 862-1237 or mminton@science.tamu.edu; or Alexei Sokolov (979) 845-8519 or sokol@jewel.tamu.edu

Press Coverage:
“A&M professor awarded Adolph Lomb Medal” – B-CS Eagle (05/28/03)