Title

Club McKenzie: Sailing on a Rainbow! Solar and Laser Driven Light Sails for Space Exploration

Date:
Wednesday, July 7, 2021
Time:
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Location:
Zoom Videoconferencing

McKenzie_Martin_Sail3

Registration is required to attend. Register for the Zoom event by clicking here, and you’ll receive an email confirmation with the video conferencing details.

Similar to the early days of the Wright brothers, this period in history marks the dawn of the Age of Light Sails for propelling vehicles through outer space. The combined emergence of a developing space economy, Cube Sat technology, metamaterials and photonics provides opportunities to significantly advance both solar and laser driven sails. Although the force on light-driven sails is adequate beyond the gravitational influence of Earth, experiments to verify these sailing principles are difficult in the laboratory. Join us as Dr. Grover Swartzlander describes experiments being conducted only at RIT, making Rochester an emerging national testing center. 
 
Club McKenzie monthly programs are named for Provost Emeritus Stan McKenzie, whose late afternoon get-togethers are legendary. Celebrating Stan's love of learning, laughter, and libation, Club McKenzie is an evening of wit, wisdom, and intellectual stimulation featuring favorite RIT presenters.
 
Grover Swartzlander has pioneered optical radiation pressure for over 20 years, including optical force and torque from optical vortices, cambered refractive surfaces, gravitational assist analogs in optics, and most recently, light sails comprised of diffractive optical elements, including a passive optical beam rider. Primarily an experimentalist, he is best known for optical tweezers, optical vortex solitons, and the optical vortex coronagraph. His research as been cited over 6000 times by the international scientific community. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a 3-time NASA NIAC Fellow, and he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Optical Society of America, B until 2019. Dr. Swartzlander if currently a professor at the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science here at RIT.
 

If you have any questions, please contact Kelly Redder

Interpreter requests must be received 7 business days prior to an event. Requests received within 7 business days will not be fulfilled.

Your annual gift increases the value of your degree. Learn how >>  

This event does not require an RSVP. Registered users can request event reminders.
Register