Nonlinear Optical Materials and their Characterization

This lecture will provide a mini-course on nonlinear optics (NLO), primarily focusing on 3rd-order NLO, and demonstrate how chi-3 is overused in the literature, which is not discussed in textbooks. Eric Van Stryland will also explore how, by going to “Extremely Non-Degenerate NLO,” END-NLO, one can get orders of magnitude enhancement of the nonlinearities of nonlinear absorption and nonlinear refraction.

About the Speaker

2006 President Eric Van Stryland, known for developing the z-scan technique with colleague Mansoor Sheik-Bahae, received a Ph.D. in physics in 1976 from the University of Arizona, Optical Sciences Center, USA.  The z-scan method measures the nonlinear properties of a material. Applications of nonlinear materials include all-optical switching and sensing.

After receiving his doctorate, Van Stryland worked in the areas of femtosecond pulse production, multiphoton absorption in solids, and laser-induced damage at the Center for Laser Studies at the University of Southern California for two years. In 1978, he joined the physics department at the University of North Texas in 1978 and helped form the Center for Applied Quantum Electronics, serving as chairman of the center for two years.

In 1987, Van Stryland joined the newly formed Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He became director of the School of Optics/CREOL in 1999 (the 1st college devoted to optics & photonics in the US). When the school was elevated to the College of Optics and Photonics, Van Stryland became Dean of the College. In 2003, when Florida Governor Jeb Bush established the Florida Photonics Center of Excellence, Van Stryland became director of that center as well.

He graduated 42 Ph.D.'s, published >300 publications primarily in the field of nonlinear optics, including the Z-scan paper, which was acknowledged as the most cited paper in the history of the Journal of Quantum Electronics. As a Pegasus Professor Emeritus at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Eric worked with Tony Siegman and Chris Dainty to hold the first Optica summer school program in Changchun, China, in 2011. After Tony passed away in 2011, Eric helped establish the Siegman International School on Lasers and served as Chair of the Program Committee for the first school held at Stanford University in 2014, where Tony taught for over 40 years.

He is a Fellow of Optica, IEEE, APS, and SPIE, received an R&D 200 award, and received UCF’s highest honor and was named “Pegasus Professor” in 2003. In 2012, he received Optica's R. W. Wood Prize, "For invention, implementation and development of “Z-scan”: A simple and effective method to measure cubic and higher order optical nonlinearities." Eric officially retired in 2019 but continues working with students and faculty as Prof./Dean Emeritus. He received the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics in 2023.