This award supports registration and/or travel support of graduate students and/or postdocs attending The Quantum Control of Light and Matter Gordon Research Conference for 2009 which is the sixth in a series, established in 1999. The conference was created to foster and encourage the new and rapidly growing subfield of physical science known as Quantum Control (or Coherent Control). The early work in this field was devoted primarily to the physics and chemistry of phase-controlled optical fields to control unimolecular processes such as dissociation and ionization in the gas phase. In the intervening decade, the field has grown much larger, encompassing quantum coherence aspects in sub-femtosecond laser physics, ultrafast x-ray physics and materials science, quantum information science, as well as gas and liquid phase coherent control of chemical reactions. The conference includes people from several sub-disciplines of AMO Physics and Physical Chemistry, including those working with cold degenerate atomic gases, femtosecond and attosecond pulses, ultra-high laser fields, high harmonics, solid state physics, ultrafast x-rays, and applied mathematics for control problems.
The objective of the conference is to bring together internationally leading scientists as well as young researchers and students active (or particularly interested) in the field of quantum control. As such, it has an impact far beyond the scholarly benefit to the participants. The conference has become the most important world forum for new research results and trends in this rapidly expanding field. The interdisciplinary character of the field contributes to this broad impact, and this will be emphasized.
