Graduate Student in the Plasma and Ultrafast Physics Group Sara Bucht is reflected in a grating used in research in her lab at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics December 6, 2018. THe smaller grating in front was used by Nobel prize winner Donna Strickland in her research at the LLE in the 1980s. Bucht is using CPA to make a novel laser that will be used for laser-plasma amplifiers. Laser-plasma amplifiers could lead to a paradigm shift in short-pulse laser amplification (much like CPA did 30 years ago) and provide the enabling technology for achieving intensities necessary for strong field quantum electrodynamics research (potentially the next graduate student project to be recognized by the Nobel committee) // photo by J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester

University of Rochester assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics and Astronomy Ranga Dias holds an array containing diamond anvil cells used to compress and alter the properties of hydrogen rich materials in his lab in Hopeman Hall February 2, 2021. Dias' goal is to create novel quantum materials such as superconductors with a critical temperature at or near room temperature. // photo by J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester