Distinguished Professors Rainer Grobe and Q. Charles Su, co-directors of the department's Intense Laser Physics Theory Unit, have recently been awarded a research grant entitled “Spatial and temporal dynamics of matter in intense laser fields” from the National Science Foundation. The three year $300,000 grant is the eighth consecutive grant from the NSF, the nation's premier agency for funding basic science research. The two faculty members have acquired a total of about 1.8 Million Dollars in NSF funds for ISU.

They plan to use this grant to study the subject of particle-antiparticle pair creation processes under the extreme external force field conditions. They are seeking new undergraduate students to join their research group, to perform computer simulations and to analyze the data produced from the simulations.

Since 1996, 57 undergraduate students have participated in their research efforts producing 64 student co-authored articles in scientific journals, 295 student presentations were made at various regional, national, and international meetings. Some of their research students have won research prizes at ISAAPT and APS meetings, as well as the top national award for undergraduate research, the APS LeRoy Apker Award.

Congratulations to Drs. Grobe and Su!