Stephen E. Harris

Stephen E. Harris
Stephen Harris
Born (1936-11-29) November 29, 1936 (age 87)
Brooklyn, New York
NationalityAmerican
Alma materStanford University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsStanford University
Doctoral advisorAnthony E. Siegman
Doctoral studentsRobert L. Byer, Ataç İmamoğlu

Stephen Ernest Harris (born November 29, 1936) is an American physicist known for his contributions to electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT),[1][2] modulation of single photons, and x-ray emission.

In a diverse career, he has collaborated with others to produce results in many areas, including the 1999 paper titled “Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold gas,”[3] in which Lene Hau and Harris, Cyrus Behroozi and Zachary Dutton describe how they used EIT to slow optical pulses to the speed of a bicycle. He has also contributed to developments in the use of the laser, generating paired photons with single driving lasers[4] He has also shown the development of such pairs of photons using waveforms[5]

His more recent work has sought to address restraints imposed on the types of waveforms that can be produced by the single-cycle barrier[6] Harris and colleagues succeeded in this endeavour in 2005 during a series of experiments aimed at obtaining full control of waveforms, noting "we were able to vary the shape of the pulse to generate different prescribed waveforms."[7] It is hoped that these results will lead to coherent control of chemical reactions, as a probe for ever-shorter physical processes, and for highly efficient generation of far infra-red and vacuum ultra-violet radiation.

Harris was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 1977 for contributions in the field of coherent and non-linear optics.

  1. ^ Harris, S. E. (1989). "Lasers without inversion: Interference of lifetime-broadened resonances". Physical Review Letters. 62 (9): 1033–1036. Bibcode:1989PhRvL..62.1033H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.1033. PMID 10040407.
  2. ^ Boller, K.-J.; Imamoğlu, A.; Harris, S. E. (1991). "Observation of electromagnetically induced transparency". Physical Review Letters. 66 (20): 2593–2596. Bibcode:1991PhRvL..66.2593B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.66.2593. PMID 10043562.
  3. ^ Hau, Lene Vestergaard; Harris, S. E.; Dutton, Zachary; Behroozi, Cyrus H. (February 1999). "Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold atomic gas". Nature. 397 (6720): 594–598. doi:10.1038/17561. S2CID 4423307.
  4. ^ Du, Shengwang; Kolchin, Pavel; Belthangady, Chinmay; Yin, G. Y.; Harris, S. E. (2006). "Generation of Narrow Bandwidth Paired Photons: Use of a Single Driving Laser". Slow and Fast Light. pp. TuA2. doi:10.1364/SL.2006.TuA2. ISBN 1-55752-816-0.
  5. ^ V. Balic, D. A. Braje, P. Kolchin, G. Y. Yin, and S. E. Harris, "Generation of Paired Photons with Controllable Waveforms," Archived 2007-02-03 at the Wayback Machine Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 183601-1/183601-4 (May 2005).
  6. ^ M. Y. Shverdin, D. R. Walker, S. Goda, G. Y. Yin, and S. E. Harris, "Breaking the Single-Cycle Barrier," Photonics Spectra 39, 92-105 (February 2005).
  7. ^ Breaking the Single-Cycle Barrier