Vassilia Zorba

Last updated
Vassilia Zorba
Born
Greece
Alma mater University of Crete
Scientific career
Institutions University of California, Berkeley
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Thesis Laser micro/nano-structuring of Si: Optical, Electronic and Wetting Properties  (2008)

Vassilia Zorba is a Greek-American plasma physicist, group leader and professor at Berkeley Lab. Her research focuses on the development of ultrafast laser plasma spectroscopies. She specialises in femtosecond laser-matter interactions. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Optica.

Contents

Early life and education

Zorba was born in Greece. She completed her undergraduate studies in the University of Crete, where she specialised in physics. She completed her master's degree and doctorate in Crete. Her doctorate considered the laser-induced micro-/nano- structuring of silicon. [1] Femtosecond laser micromachining can be used to generate micro-/nano- structures in the optical near and far fields. In the far-field, Zorba realised water repellent biomimetic structures. [1] Zorba joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a postdoc. She was part of the Environmental Energy Technology Division, and developed strategies to analyse lithium ion batteries at high resolution. She studied ultra-thin interfacial layers to evaluate how chemical reactions that occur during charging impact battery performance after electrochemical cycling. [2]

Research and career

Zorba uses ultrafast lasers and advanced laser-based manufacturing tools for nonlinear optics, chemistry and remote sensing. [3] In particular, she is interested in analysing the chemical content of materials and laser plasmas. [3] This has applications in many technology areas, including energy (batteries and solar cells) as well as biomedical and nuclear security. [2] She worked on the ChemCam (the Chemistry and Camera complex) instrument for Curiosity , which incorporated laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. [2]

Awards and honours

Select publications

Related Research Articles

A femtosecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10−15 or 11 000 000 000 000 000 of a second; that is, one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth, of a second. For context, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to about 31.71 million years; a ray of light travels approximately 0.3 μm (micrometers) in 1 femtosecond, a distance comparable to the diameter of a virus. The first to make femtosecond measurements was the Egyptian Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999. Professor Zewail used lasers to measure the movement of particles at the femtosecond scale, thereby allowing chemical reactions to be observed for the first time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Molecular engineering</span> Field of study in molecular properties

Molecular engineering is an emerging field of study concerned with the design and testing of molecular properties, behavior and interactions in order to assemble better materials, systems, and processes for specific functions. This approach, in which observable properties of a macroscopic system are influenced by direct alteration of a molecular structure, falls into the broader category of “bottom-up” design.

In physics and physical chemistry, time-resolved spectroscopy is the study of dynamic processes in materials or chemical compounds by means of spectroscopic techniques. Most often, processes are studied after the illumination of a material occurs, but in principle, the technique can be applied to any process that leads to a change in properties of a material. With the help of pulsed lasers, it is possible to study processes that occur on time scales as short as 10−16 seconds. All time-resolved spectra are suitable to be analyzed using the two-dimensional correlation method for a correlation map between the peaks.

In optics, an ultrashort pulse, also known as an ultrafast event, is an electromagnetic pulse whose time duration is of the order of a picosecond or less. Such pulses have a broadband optical spectrum, and can be created by mode-locked oscillators. Amplification of ultrashort pulses almost always requires the technique of chirped pulse amplification, in order to avoid damage to the gain medium of the amplifier.

Polaritonics is an intermediate regime between photonics and sub-microwave electronics. In this regime, signals are carried by an admixture of electromagnetic and lattice vibrational waves known as phonon-polaritons, rather than currents or photons. Since phonon-polaritons propagate with frequencies in the range of hundreds of gigahertz to several terahertz, polaritonics bridges the gap between electronics and photonics. A compelling motivation for polaritonics is the demand for high speed signal processing and linear and nonlinear terahertz spectroscopy. Polaritonics has distinct advantages over electronics, photonics, and traditional terahertz spectroscopy in that it offers the potential for a fully integrated platform that supports terahertz wave generation, guidance, manipulation, and readout in a single patterned material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy</span> Type of atomic emission spectroscopy

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a type of atomic emission spectroscopy which uses a highly energetic laser pulse as the excitation source. The laser is focused to form a plasma, which atomizes and excites samples. The formation of the plasma only begins when the focused laser achieves a certain threshold for optical breakdown, which generally depends on the environment and the target material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ICFO</span> Photonic sciences research institute in Spain

ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences is a research center devoted to the science and technology of light. Located in Castelldefels, ICFO was created in 2002 by the Government of Catalonia and the Technical University of Catalonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute of Optics</span>

The Institute of Optics is a department and research center at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. The institute grants degrees at the bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels through the University of Rochester School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Since its founding, the institute has granted over 2,500 degrees in optics, making up about half of the degrees awarded in the field in the United States. The institute is made up of 20 full-time professors, 12 professors with joint appointments in other departments, 10 adjunct professors, 5 research scientists, 11 staff, about 170 undergraduate students and about 110 graduate students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard J. Saykally</span> American chemist

Richard James Saykally is an American chemist. He is currently the Class of 1932 Endowed Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He has received numerous awards for his research on the molecular characteristics of water and aqueous solutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute for Spectroscopy Russian Academy of Sciences</span> Research institution in Moscow, Russia

The Institute of Spectroscopy Russian Academy of Sciences (ISAN) is a Russian research institution located in Troitsk, Moscow

Ultrafast X-rays or ultrashort X-ray pulses are femtosecond x-ray pulses with wavelengths occurring at interatomic distances. This beam uses the X-ray's inherent abilities to interact at the level of atomic nuclei and core electrons. This ability combined with the shorter pulses at 30 femtosecond could capture the change in position of atoms, or molecules during phase transitions, chemical reactions, and other transient processes in physics, chemistry, and biology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teri W. Odom</span> American chemist and materials scientist

Teri W. Odom is an American chemist and materials scientist. She is the chair of the chemistry department, the Joan Husting Madden and William H. Madden, Jr. Professor of Chemistry, and a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University. She is affiliated with the university's International Institute for Nanotechnology, Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation, Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, and department of applied physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anatoly Zayats</span>

Anatoly V. Zayats is a British experimental physicist of Ukrainian origin known for his work in nanophotonics, plasmonics, metamaterials and applied nanotechnology. He is currently a Chair in Experimental Physics and the head of the Photonics & Nanotechnology Group at King's College London. He is a co-director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the London Institute for Advanced Light Technologies

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. J. Dwayne Miller</span> Canadian chemist

R. J. Dwayne Miller is a Canadian chemist and a professor at the University of Toronto. His focus is in physical chemistry and biophysics. He is most widely known for his work in ultrafast laser science, time-resolved spectroscopy, and the development of new femtosecond electron sources. His research has enabled real-time observation of atomic motions in materials during chemical processes and has shed light on the structure-function correlation that underlies biology.

Helen H. Fielding is a Professor of physical chemistry at University College London (UCL). She focuses on ultrafast transient spectroscopy of protein chromophores and molecules. She was the first woman to win the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize (1996) and Marlow Award (2001).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debabrata Goswami</span> Indian chemist

Debabrata Goswami FInstP FRSC, is an Indian chemist and the Prof. S. Sampath Chair Professor of Chemistry, at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He is also a professor of The Department of Chemistry and The Center for Lasers & Photonics at the same Institute. Goswami is an associate editor of the open-access journal Science Advances. He is also an Academic Editor for PLOS One and PeerJ Chemistry. He has contributed to the theory of Quantum Computing as well as nonlinear optical spectroscopy. His work is documented in more than 200 research publications. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the SPIE, and The Optical Society. He is also a Senior Member of the IEEE, has been awarded a Swarnajayanti Fellowship for Chemical Sciences, and has held a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship. He is the third Indian to be awarded the International Commission for Optics Galileo Galilei Medal for excellence in optics.

Nathalie Picqué is a French physicist working at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in the field Frequency Combs, where she studies ultra-high resolution spectroscopy using ultrashort pulses of light combined with Fourier-transform spectroscopy to reveal the fine chemistry of samples, in particular in the mid-infrared, demonstrating resolving power in excess of 1,000,000,000,000.

Olga Smirnova is a German physicist who is Head of the Strong Field Theory Group at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy and Professor at the Technical University of Berlin. Her research considers the interaction of strong fields with atoms and molecules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sylvie Roke</span> Dutch chemist and physicist specialized in photochemistry

Sylvie Roke is a Dutch chemist and physicist specialized in photonics and aqueous systems. As a full professor she holds Julia Jacobi Chair of Photomedicine at EPFL and is the director of the Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics.

Clara Jody Saraceno is a laser scientist whose research involves the development of ultrafast lasers, a technology whose applications include ultrafast laser spectroscopy, and imaging biological processes at the molecular scale. Born in Argentina and educated in France and Switzerland, she works in Germany as a professor in the Faculty for Electrical Engineering of Ruhr University Bochum, where she holds the Chair of Photonics and Ultrafast Laser Science.

References

  1. 1 2 Zorba, Vassilia (2009-10-13). "Ultrafast Laser Surface Micro/Nano-Structuring and Applications". Frontiers in Optics 2009/Laser Science XXV/Fall 2009 OSA Optics & Photonics Technical Digest (2009), Paper LMTuD1. Optica Publishing Group: LMTuD1. doi:10.1364/LM.2009.LMTuD1. ISBN   978-1-55752-878-0.
  2. 1 2 3 "Ten Year Views: With Vassilia Zorba". The Analytical Scientist. 2023-07-25. Retrieved 2023-12-14.
  3. 1 2 3 "Laser Technology Leader Vassilia Zorba: A Rising Star in Photonics | Energy Technologies Area". eta.lbl.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  4. "Desktop Seminar with JAAS Emerging Investigator Lectureship winner". www.rsc.org. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  5. "2023 Fellows | Optica". www.optica.org. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  6. "The Photonics100 (2024) | Electro Optics". www.electrooptics.com. Retrieved 2023-12-14.