OSE Seminar by Dr. Luke Emmert on Moving Electrons with Lasers

Departmental News

Dr. Luke Emmert

Posted: April 6, 2026

Date: Thursday, April 09, 2026

Time:  12:45 PM to 1:45 PM

Location: PAIS Room 2540 and Zoom

Speaker: 
Dr. Luke Emmert, Associate Research Professor
Physics and Astronomy Department & OSE Program

Abstract:

As the duration of a laser pulse approaches the optical period, so called few cycle pulses are created. These pulses have asymmetries in the electric field characterized by the carrier-envelope phase (CEP), which is the separation of the peak of the electric field with the peak of the underlying envelope of the laser pulse. These pulses have been used to drive electron movement within micrometer and nanometer scale structures. In this presentation, I will review some of this work, show our attempts to create optically-driven currents in metal-semiconductor-metal structures, and discuss an interesting result that we still hope to explain.

Biography:

Luke Emmert is a research associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UNM. You may have seen him wandering through the halls of PAIS and CHTM staring at his phone. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University where he was first exposed to photonics while trying to make thin film waveguides. Since coming to UNM, he has studied the response of optical materials to intense laser illumination among other things. He still has dreams of one day choreographing an electron ballet (with lasers!).