Prize Recipient


Wolfgang Theobald
University of Rochester

Citation:

"For major advancements of the shock ignition concept through collaborative experimental and simulation efforts in inertial confinement fusion research."

Background:

Wolfgang Theobald is senior scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, U.S.A., which he joined in 2003. He serves as Principal Investigator (PI) for many experiments exploring the shock-ignition concept on the OMEGA laser and for the fast ignition experimental program at LLE. In this role, he performed essential experiments studying the generation and coupling of suprathermal electrons in inertial confinement fusion plasmas to increase the ablation pressure and to boost the performance of shock-ignition implosions. Previous work included studies of nonlinear optics in plasmas, high order harmonic generation, x-ray spectroscopy, and femtosecond laser plasma interaction. Dr. Theobald has over 170 publications in peer-reviewed journals and over 20 invited talks at major conferences. He is a member of the American Physical Society and he received in 2018 a fellowship in the division of plasma physics. Wolfgang Theobald graduated from the Johannes- Gutenberg-University of Mainz, Germany, in 1991 with a Diploma in Physics, studying laser spectroscopy in transuranic elements. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany in 1994 with a work on femtosecond laser generated plasmas and his habilitation in experimental physics, in the department of Physics and Astronomy at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany in 2001.