An Interview with David Carlson, Winner of the 2019 Couillaud Prize
The Couillaud prize is awarded jointly by Coherent and the Optical Society of America (OSA) in memory of Dr. Bernard J. Couillaud, who was a widely recognized industry leader in the field of ultrafast laser sources with over 60 technical publications during his long career. Bernard joined Coherent in 1983 and eventually became the company’s CEO before retiring in 2007.
We recently caught up with Dr. Carlson and interviewed him about the importance of tantala (tantalum pentoxide, Ta2O5) and about how he has used this award to accelerate the development of commercial products and applications. He discussed the important photonic and physical properties that make tantala such as promising material and explained how the award has directly funded equipment that will help turn some of his research into commercial products.