The "Nobel Prize" is awarded to those who have made "the greatest contribution to human" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology, medicine or literature. It is internationally recognized as the highest honor, and affirms the recipients’ achievement in their fields. Since 1901, about 18 men have won the Nobel Prize for every woman, and only a handful of women have won physics prizes.

In October 2018, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Gérard Mourou and his student Donna Strickland for Chirped Pulse Amplification. Donna Strickland then became the third woman scientist to win this honor, after Madame Curie and Maria Goeppert-Mayer.

In 1985, Donna Strickland and her tutor Gérard Mourou published "Compression of Amplified Chirped Optical Pulses". Their invention of the Chirped Pulse Amplification method led to a rapid development in the field of high-intensity ultrashorted pulsed beams. Currently, Donna Strickland leads her group at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where she continues her research on nonlinear optics, among other things. Nicknamed the "Laser Athlete", she is constantly setting new records and expanding the scope of research in the laser field, and we expect her to bring more discoveries and achievements to the laser field.

Recently, WANG Hui from Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted an in-depth interview with Dr. Donna Strickland, we will know the story behind the research in Chirped Pulse Amplification, as well as what advice the Nobel Laureate would give to women and young scientists. 

Biography: Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor. Together they paved the way toward the most intense laser pulses ever created. Their research has several applications today in industry and medicine—including the cutting of a patient’s cornea in laser eye surgery and the machining of small glass parts for use in cell phones.

Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council Canada, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and a member of technical staff at Princeton University. She is a recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award, and a Cottrell Scholar Award. She served as the president of the Optical Society (OSA) in 2013 and is a fellow of OSA, the Royal Society of Canada, and SPIE (International Society for Optics and Photonics). Strickland is an honorary fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering as well as the Institute of Physics. She received the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement and holds numerous honorary doctorates.

Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-021-00502-z