UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

UCF Dedicates Townes Laser Institute, Gives Honorary Degree to Founding Father of Laser

ORLANDO, May 7, 2007 -- The University of Central Florida dedicated its new Center of Excellence in advanced laser technology on Friday, May 4, in honor of Charles Townes, the laser's founding father, and announced a new fellowship in the name of Townes' wife, Frances.

Before the formal dedication of the Townes Laser Institute, Townes gave a lecture on the past, present and possible future of lasers and ate lunch with 83 students. A winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics, Townes also toured laboratories at UCF's Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) building.

UCF awarded Townes an honorary doctoral degree in Sciences during a commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 5. Frances Townes joined her husband, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley for the past 40 years, at commencement and at the dedication ceremony for the Townes Laser Institute.

The state provided $4.5 million to help fund the institute, which will focus on the next generation of laser technologies for medicine, advanced manufacturing tools and defense. In addition, UCF will hire six new faculty members and will contribute more than $3 million for equipment and start-up costs.

The College of Optics and Photonics, with about 150 doctoral students, already houses two research centers, CREOL and the Florida Photonics Center of Excellence. UCF's optics program, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was the first in the nation to become its own college within a university when it was designated as such in 2004.

Dean Eric Van Stryland is the past president of the Optical Society of America.

"The College of Optics and Photonics is recognized the world over because of our faculty accomplishments," said M.J. Soileau, UCF's vice president for Research, at the dedication ceremony in the CREOL lobby. "We would not be here today without Professor Townes' pioneering work."

Professor Martin Richardson and Van Stryland led the effort to establish the new institute. They also worked with Frances Townes to establish a new fellowship that will be awarded to outstanding female students from underprivileged backgrounds.

Richardson, a university trustee chair and UCF's Northrop Grumman professor of X-Ray Photonics, told Charles and Frances Townes that everyone at CREOL is committed to ensuring "that the laser activities here will be at the top level of any academic institution in the world. We will keep it that way."

Charles Townes, 91, won the Nobel Prize for the invention of the maser and laser. Maser stands for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, and laser is short for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

"It was great meeting the person who started it all," said Tim McComb, a UCF doctoral student who works in Richardson's laboratory. "It was kind of the same thing as someone meeting Thomas Edison in the 1900s. He started the electronic age. Dr. Townes started the photonics age."

During his commencement speech, Townes told graduates that they should not let "little failures here and there" disappoint them. Drawing from his own college and research experiences, he said the graduates can turn disappointments into "great advantages" if they try their best.

After failing to get financial aid to several universities, Townes wasn't sure if he could afford to go at all. He decided to go where he thought he could get the best education -- the California Institute of Technology -- with $500 to "see how long I could last." He ended up getting a teaching assistant position after one semester, and that allowed him to cover his expenses the rest of the way.

Townes later wanted a job teaching physics in academia but had to settle for an engineering position at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
Townes said the engineering knowledge he gained proved critical as he developed the inventions that led to the laser.

-- UCF --

Contacts:

Martin Richardson, CREOL, 407-823-6819, mcr@creol.ucf.edu
Chad Binette, News & Information, 407-823-6312, cbinette@mail.ucf.edu

Note to media: Photos of the dedication event and commencement ceremony are available by contacting Chad Binette. More extensive coverage of the dedication, lecture and commencement can be viewed at www.news.ucf.edu.