The UK's Royal Society honours laser pioneers

17 Jun 2002

US and UK laser experts are recognized for their contributions to science.

Prof. Ahmed Zewail, Linus Pauling Professor of chemistry and professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology, US, has been elected as a foreign member of the UK's Royal Society. World-renowned for his pioneering development of laser techniques and their application to the ultrafast dynamics of molecular systems, Zewail has also made significant contributions to femtochemistry, nonlinear spectroscopy and atomic physics. He was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999.

Prof. Keith Burnett, head of the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at Oxford University, UK, has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Burnett received the honour for his studies of interactions between ultracold atoms produced by laser and evaporative cooling, and his research into atoms and collision complexes in intense laser fields.

The Royal Society is a UK-based independent academy that aims to promote natural and applied sciences. This year's elected fellows also include Prof. Richard Dawkins for his synthesis of work on evolution and for raising the public understanding of science, and Prof. Timothy Berners-Lee for revolutionizing communication via the Internet by inventing protocols that led to the World Wide Web. Sir Patrick Moore received an Honorary Fellowship for his huge contributions to astronomy.