Two great inventions, optical tweezers and ultrafast intense laser, have been honoured by this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, for their great applications in physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. Arthur Ashkin invented optical tweezers that grab particles, atoms, molecules, and even living cells with their laser beam fingers, opening up entirely new opportunities for observing and controlling the machinery of life. Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland invented the CPA (Chirped Pulse Amplification) technique, paving the way towards the shortest and most intense laser pulses created by mankind. Such intense laser has opened up new landscapes of research with broad scientific and practical applications, such as laser plasma accelerators, attosecond physics, and ultrafast micromachining. In this talk, the basic principles and key achievements made by these inventions will be introduced, and a vision for future development will also be presented.   

Bio：

Wei Lu is a professor of Engineering Physics department in Tsinghua University. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Tsinghua in 1998 and 2001 respectively, and later a Ph.D on laser plasma acceleration in 2006 at UCLA. His major research field is ultrafast intense lasers and its application, with a focus on laser plasma accelerator and light sources. Laser plasma accelerator is a fast growing field worldwide with a potential of transforming large accelerator based facilities to tabletop sources. Dr. Lu won worldwide recognizations for his pioneering works. In 2007 he got the first John Dawson prize in laser plasma acceleration, a prize named after the late John Dawson, the founding father of the field. In 2014, he got the IUPAP young scientist prize（International Union of Pure and Applied Physics）as the first laser plasma physicist. In 2011,he came back Tsinghua to build a research team focusing on laser plasma accelerator and its application. After 8 years hard work, Tsinghua team has made significant progresses and has become one of the leading teams worldwide. 

Prof.Lu has published more than 100 papers, include 3 Nature (1 cover, 1 cover highlight), Nature Photonics (cover), Nature Physics, 3 Nature Communications, 25 PRLs (1 cover), with total citation more than 4500. He has organized three major international conferences as chair, and has served on program committee or advisory committee for the major international conferences in the field since 2009.