Stephen Ernest Harris (born November 29, 1936) is an American physicist known for his contributions to electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT),[1][2] modulation of single photons, and x-ray emission.

Stephen E. Harris
Stephen Harris
Born (1936-11-29) November 29, 1936 (age 87)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materStanford University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsStanford University
Doctoral advisorAnthony E. Siegman
Doctoral studentsRobert L. Byer, Ataç İmamoğlu

In a diverse career, he has collaborated with others to produce results in many areas, including the 1999 paper titled “Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold gas,”[3] in which Lene Hau and Harris, Cyrus Behroozi and Zachary Dutton describe how they used EIT to slow optical pulses to the speed of a bicycle. He has also contributed to developments in the use of the laser, generating paired photons with single driving lasers[4] He has also shown the development of such pairs of photons using waveforms[5]

His more recent work has sought to address restraints imposed on the types of waveforms that can be produced by the single-cycle barrier[6] Harris and colleagues succeeded in this endeavour in 2005 during a series of experiments aimed at obtaining full control of waveforms, noting "we were able to vary the shape of the pulse to generate different prescribed waveforms."[7] It is hoped that these results will lead to coherent control of chemical reactions, as a probe for ever-shorter physical processes, and for highly efficient generation of far infra-red and vacuum ultra-violet radiation.

Harris was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 1977 for contributions in the field of coherent and non-linear optics.

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  1. ^ Harris, S. E. (1989). "Lasers without inversion: Interference of lifetime-broadened resonances". Physical Review Letters. 62 (9): 1033–1036. Bibcode:1989PhRvL..62.1033H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.1033. PMID 10040407.
  2. ^ Boller, K.-J.; Imamoğlu, A.; Harris, S. E. (1991). "Observation of electromagnetically induced transparency". Physical Review Letters. 66 (20): 2593–2596. Bibcode:1991PhRvL..66.2593B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.66.2593. PMID 10043562.
  3. ^ Hau, Lene Vestergaard; Harris, S. E.; Dutton, Zachary; Behroozi, Cyrus H. (February 1999). "Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold atomic gas". Nature. 397 (6720): 594–598. doi:10.1038/17561. S2CID 4423307.
  4. ^ Du, Shengwang; Kolchin, Pavel; Belthangady, Chinmay; Yin, G. Y.; Harris, S. E. (2006). "Generation of Narrow Bandwidth Paired Photons: Use of a Single Driving Laser". Slow and Fast Light. pp. TuA2. doi:10.1364/SL.2006.TuA2. ISBN 1-55752-816-0.
  5. ^ V. Balic, D. A. Braje, P. Kolchin, G. Y. Yin, and S. E. Harris, "Generation of Paired Photons with Controllable Waveforms," Archived 2007-02-03 at the Wayback Machine Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 183601-1/183601-4 (May 2005).
  6. ^ M. Y. Shverdin, D. R. Walker, S. Goda, G. Y. Yin, and S. E. Harris, "Breaking the Single-Cycle Barrier," Photonics Spectra 39, 92-105 (February 2005).
  7. ^ Breaking the Single-Cycle Barrier
  8. ^ The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics [1]

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