In 1973, Dr. Paul Corkum joined the National Research Council as a postdoctoral fellow. From 1973 until 1985, he concentrated his work on laser technology, and for more than a decade held the record for the shortest pulses ever generated in the infrared. When it became clear that the development of few-cycle pulses was inevitable, and that they could be made very powerful, he began applying this emerging technology to unsolved issues in science. His most notable accomplishment has been to introduce a model that describes how atoms and molecules ionize. He has extended it to become the current standard used by the international femtosecond science community.

Dr. Corkum was born in Saint John, New Brunswick and studied physics at Acadia University where he received his B.Sc. He later obtained his Ph.D. in statistical mechanics from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Today, Dr. Corkum continues his work as part of the Femtoseconds Research Program at the NRC’s Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences in Ottawa.

Dr. Corkum is a member of the Royal Society of Canada. In addition to his numerous distinctions, he has been awarded the Medal of Achievement by the Canadian Association of Physicists, the Einstein Award from the Society for Optical and Quantum Electronics, and the distinguished lecturer’s award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Laser and Electro Optic Society.

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