May 16th 2010 we celebrated 50 years from the moment when Theodor Maiman lighted up the first laser. In our country we succeeded shortly after. In Czechoslovakia, the laser was successfully constructed in three independent labs within several weeks in spring 1963. One of the lasers was built in our institute. We achieved also other important results in this area.
Popularization articles for this anniversary (in Czech), published with kind approval of Czechoslovak journal for physics: [Fibre lasers, History of laser in ÚFE, Laser and holography]
Record accurate time signal transfer via Internet:
A Czech-Austrian experiment took place on March 1 and 2 2010 which compared the time scales of atomic clocks in Prague and Vienna using an optical link. The experiment was performed in cooperation with CESNET. A measurement uncertainty of less than one nanosecond was achieved. It is more than likely that an international transfer of a time signal over an optical line spanning a comparable distance and with a comparable accuracy has not yet been performed anywhere else in the world. The experiment indicated the type of real-time applications the future Internet will be suitable for.
Press release (in Czech): [HTML]
Head of the Photonics Division Assoc. Prof. Jiří Homola, Ph.D., DSc., was awarded the prestigeous INVENTION prize (donated by KAPSCH, a.s.), in the 8-th annual prize competition "Česká hlava" ("Czech Head").
Member of Division of Photonics RNDr. Radan Slavík, PhD., DSc. has been awarded by Honorable mention of the president of the Czech Science Foundation for his work on project "Active tunable all-fiber components based on fiber long period gratings". Further information ... (in Czech only)
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009:
Charles K. Kao (50%) "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication" and Willard S. Boyle a George E. Smith (50%) "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor".
Congratulations!
Popularization articles on optical fibers (in Czech): [PDF]
Fine Mechanics and Optics 4/2010: [ PDF ] (in Czech only)
Charles Kuen Kao and optic fibers: [ PDF ] (in Czech only)