Office: Laboratory for Laser Energetics,
room 1429
Phone: (585) 275-4837 (office)
Fax: (585) 275-7225
E-mail: sjac@LLE.rochester.edu

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Our Group conducts research on optical materials for high power lasers, optical applications of liquid crystals, and novel optics manufacturing processes. We are interested in developing new optical materials, devices, and manufacturing processes for optical and laser applications. Our research group is very interdisciplinary, consisting of a liquid crystal chemist, several optical physicists, chemical engineers, and students (undergraduate and graduate) from The Institute of Optics, the Materials Science Program, and the Department of Chemical Engineering. We carry out our research in a number of laboratories on the University's South Campus under the auspices of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics and the Center for Optics Manufacturing.

In the early '80's, we started to explore applications of liquid crystals in high peak power lasers. We were the first to develop and utilize large aperture, laser damage resistant, low molecular weight liquid crystal devices as circular polarizers and waveplates. Over 300 liquid crystal optics to 200 mm in diameter are used for polarization control in the OMEGA Nd: glass laser system at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). This system is currently the largest, university-based high peak power laser for fusion research in the world. Electro-optic devices such as variable apodizers and shutter/choppers have been subjects of study by our group, and we have recently been investigating the electro-optic effects obtained by a new form of polarizing pigment called liquid crystal flakes. Electrically driven reorientation of polymer cholesteric (PCLC) liquid crystal flakes in a host fluid holds promise for bright reflective display applications.

In the '90's, the group began to concentrate some of its efforts on the science of optical glass polishing. This work is aggressively carried out at the Center for Optics Manufacturing (COM) within the LLE. By replacing the conventional aqueous based cerium oxide slurry/pitch lap with a magnetic fluid lap, the group co-invented and helped to commercialize a process called magnetorheological finishing (MRF). A spin-off from COM, QED Technologies, Inc., in Rochester, NY, has successfully commercialized MRF and has placed its line of finishing systems throughout the world.

MRF is the current focus of the optical finishing group, with significant effort being directed to magnetic fluid chemistry, rheology, and the interactions of polishing abrasives with various optical glasses, water soluble crystals, semiconductors, and hard, polycrystalline ceramics. Analyses of MRF experiments are performed using a variety of interferometers, surface profilers, and optical and atomic force microscopes.