Paul Corkum facts for kids

Paul Bruce Corkum, born on October 30, 1943, is a famous Canadian scientist. He is a physicist who studies very fast events using lasers. He is an expert in attosecond physics and laser science. An attosecond is an incredibly short amount of time. It's like one billionth of a billionth of a second!

Professor Corkum works at the University of Ottawa and the NRC. He also teaches at other universities. He is special because he both creates new theories and does experiments. He is well-known for developing the ideas behind attosecond physics.

Paul Corkum's Life and Discoveries

Early Life and Education

Paul Corkum was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. He went to Acadia University in Nova Scotia, where he earned his first science degree in 1965. Later, he earned his Master's and PhD degrees in theoretical physics from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He has won many awards for his amazing work with lasers.

Making X-ray Lasers

In the 1980s, Paul Corkum created a new way to understand how atoms lose their electrons. This process is called ionization. When atoms lose electrons, they can form a gas called plasma. Based on this idea, he suggested a new method for making X-ray lasers. These are called optical field ionization (OFI) lasers. Today, OFI lasers are very important in X-ray laser research.

Discovering Attosecond Pulses

In the early 1990s, scientists found new things about how strong lasers affect atoms. They saw that atoms could absorb a lot of light and release two electrons. This led to Corkum's big idea: the recollision electron model.

This model helped scientists create super-short laser flashes called attosecond pulses. In 2001, Professor Corkum and his team in Vienna used this method. They were the first to make laser pulses that lasted less than one femtosecond. A femtosecond is still incredibly short, but an attosecond is even shorter! This new method helps us explore atoms and molecules in tiny detail.

Understanding Atoms with Recollision Electrons

Paul Corkum's work with recollision electrons has helped us learn a lot. It shows how electrons, light, and atoms or molecules interact. Think of a recollision electron like a tiny measuring tool. It's built by laser light from atoms. This tool can help scientists measure and understand the tiny parts of atoms and molecules.

Major Achievements and Awards

From 1997 to 2009, he was a professor at McMaster University. In 2018, Paul Corkum became the first Canadian to receive the Institute of Physics Isaac Newton Medal. This award was for his amazing work in physics and attosecond science. His pioneering work helped create the first images of molecular orbitals. It also made the first space-time image of an attosecond pulse.

Attosecond techniques are super powerful. They can "freeze" the movement of electrons inside atoms and molecules. This allows scientists to watch how chemical reactions happen.

Honors and Awards

Paul Corkum has received many important awards for his scientific discoveries:

• 1996 Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Physics
• 1999 Einstein Award
• 2003 Tory Medal
• 2003 Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal
• 2005 Fellow of the Royal Society
• 2005 Quantum Electronics Award
• 2005 Charles Hard Townes Award
• 2006 Killam Prize
• 2006 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science
• 2008 John C. Polanyi Award
• 2009 Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering
• 2010 Fellow of The Optical Society
• 2013 King Faisal International Prize for Physics
• 2013 Royal Photographic Society Progress medal and Honorary Fellowship
• 2013 Harvey Prize
• 2014 Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize
• 2015 Lomonosov Gold Medal
• 2015 Clarivate Citation laureate in Physics (with Ferenc Krausz)
• 2017 Royal Medal
• 2018 Institute of Physics Isaac Newton Medal
• 2018 SPIE Gold Medal
• 2019 The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics
• 2022 Wolf Prize in Physics
• 2022 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences
• 2025 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research