What's New?

New content and hot topics in the JRM Lab.

Local Research in the News

The JRM Lab is featured in this semester's issue of K-State's research magazine, "Seek". The article, "Laser Focus", highlights our work in ultrafast AMO physics and our many collaborations. Seek combines a variety of written content with creative photography and innovative design to tell the stories of university researchers.
The Kansas State University College of Arts and Sciences has presented its 2022 Karen Ann Griffith Research Award to the James R. Macdonald Laboratory. The award will support further research endeavors by the investigators at the laboratory, which is one of the most active centers for atomic, molecular and optical physics in the U.S. The lab's grant funding has been repeatedly renewed for nearly 50 years, most recently at $2.65 million per year.
A reception for lab personnel and University dignitaries will be held at the Alumni Center on Thursday, 07 April at 3:30 pm. Please be sure to RSVP to your e-mailed invitation.
A recent Nature Physics paper on Coulomb explosion imaging from K-State researchers and their colleagues is featured in K-State and Goethe Frankfurt press releases.
Thanks to a DOE Graduate Student Research Program, our Kurtis Borne will study at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Borne will use the LCLS-II Free Electron Laser facility there.

Hot Topics

Seventy-two Kansas State University faculty members are receiving promotions in rank, with 30 faculty members earning tenure. Earning promotion to full professor of Physics are Matthew Berg and Vinod Kumarappan. Vinod is a JRM group member who develops methods to align and orient small molecules in the gas phase, and to study ultrafast physics in the molecular frame.
Two distinguished Kansas State University researchers, Timothy Musch and Uwe Thumm, are recipients of the prestigious Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Awards. The awards are the state higher education system's most prestigious recognition for scholarly excellence. Uwe is the recipient of the Olin Petefish Award in Basic Sciences. His work includes understanding the interaction between light and matter in time and space. Uwe is the fourth Petefish award winner in the Physics department.
We are grateful to K-State College of Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Chris Culbertson for providing the funding and leadership that led to a deferred maintenance award for our department. The cooling system replacement in the JRM Lab will allow our laser systems to run much more efficiently and effectively resulting in greatly improved experiments for Kansas State University students, staff, and faculty.
Artem Rudenko, professor of physics and a new director of the JRM Laboratory, has been named the Cortelyou-Rust Chair in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Physics. The professorship at K-State recognizes individuals who have made a major and substantial impact on their field through research and teaching and continue to do so.
Professor Daniel Rolles is on sabbatical during the 2022-2023 academic year. See the K-State Today press release for the full list of university faculty doing so.
The latest edition of the Division of Laser Science newsletter is available.

Web Site Updates

The news comes thick and fast around here! In March we were featuring an APS TV video about the lab; come April we announced our participation in the CXFEL project; that was just before the K-State Seek magazine published an article on us! The Kansas State Collegian student newspaper has also published a story on our CFEL funding. Our news can be followed on this page and our past features are archived and accessible via our publications page.
The departmental newsletter makes a return after four years, including lots about the major changes happenning in the JRM Lab. You can also keep up on all the ongoing departmental news and special events via our new and improved website.
Our Publications page now has a running report of the 2023 papers published to date, and the 2022 papers have been archived. Links to all of the publications lists on the sitemap have been updated accordingly.
See our preparations for the new FLAME laser, the Femtosecond LAser for Multicolor Experiments, in a new photo gallery.
See all the latest news from the KSU Physics Department, including the latest edition of the departmental newsletter.