Chase Geiger

Background

About Chase Geiger

My research involves the development of high-power pulsed infrared lasers for attosecond spectroscopy and atmospheric science. I work in Dr. Zenghu Chang's lab at UCF, where I have become intimately familiar with the daily operation of two distinct broadband Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplifiers (OPCPAs) with central wavelengths at 1.7um and 3um. The primary goal of these homebuilt infrared lasers is to create high peak power femtosecond pulses to be used in generating water-window XUV isolated attosecond pulses. This enables one to perform Attosecond Transient Absorption Spectroscopy (ATAS) experiments which allow one to study the electronic, vibrational, and rotational dynamics of organic molecules. The dynamics can be recorded on picosecond, femtosecond, and attosecond timescales in these experiments by adjusting the delay between the infrared pump and attosecond probe pulses. My inspiration in developing these laser sources is to enable deeper studies into the fundamental physics of chemical reactions at scales of electron movement and nuclear rearrangement, such as with energy capture and storage in photovoltaics. iFAST Webpage: https://ifast.ucf.edu