high-energy-density physics

Professor Robert L. McCrory, a physicist and scientific leader who has shepherded the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics to international prominence during the past 35 years, will retire from the directorship on October 1.

Institutions including Cornell, Michigan, Princeton, and Stanford will join Rochester in developing an instrument to produce and study matter that exists under pressures far higher than either on or inside Earth.

Sefkow, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and senior scientist at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, has received a prestigious Early Career Research Program award from the US Department of Energy and the Fusion Power Associates 2017 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award.

Gilbert “Rip” Collins, formerly of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will lead a multidisciplinary initiative in Rochester to study how atoms behave at extreme pressures.

In a review of the state of the research in this field, Rochester physicist Riccardo Betti concludes the goal of realizing abundant, clean energy from inertial confinement fusion remains elusive, despite recent significant progress.

Streaming jets of high-speed matter produce some of the most stunning objects seen in space. an experiment by French and American researchers using extremely high-powered lasers offers experimental verification of one proposed mechanism for creating them.

Robert McCrory, director of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, was appointed University Professor in recognition of his contributions to the physics and engineering community, the LLE, and to the University.