Robert Klas
Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and Helmholtz Institute Jena, Germany 
 

The SPARC collaboration sincerely congratulates Robert Klas (HI-Jena) on receiving the SPARC PhD award 2021. This prestigious award was conferred to Robert Klas for his outstanding PhD work on Efficiency Scaling of High Harmonic Generation using Ultrashort Fiber Lasers.

Robert’s PhD thesis deals with powerful laser-driven sources in the XUV as an alternative to large-scale light sources, such as synchrotrons or free electron lasers (FEL). These, as he has shown, can be obtained by high harmonic generation (HHG) of high average power ultrafast fiber lasers. Featuring less complexity and offering better user access, such laser-like XUV sources nowadays find applications in lensless imaging or time-resolved spectroscopy. In particular, they can be combined with the heavy ion storage ring facilities at GSI and FAIR for precision spectroscopy. Combining XUV laser spectroscopy with the advantages of heavy ion storage rings, such as well-defined Doppler-shift in combination with exotic ions/nuclei in well-prepared quantum states, will enable unique research beyond today’s state-of the art. In this context, a proof-of-principle experiment targeting XUV-photoionization of C+ ions based on a laser-driven table-top XUV source, has been proposed, granted beam time, and conducted by the SPARC collaboration at CRYRING in 2019 and 2021 (E129). The successful implementation, however, posed a number of challenges. During the course of his doctoral studies, Robert Klas provided groundbreaking contributions to enable XUV-laser spectroscopy at heavy ion storage rings for the first time.

Robert Klas performed his work at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Fraunhofer IOF Jena and the Helmholtz Institute Jena.

José Paulo Santos, Reinhold Schuch, Thomas Stöhlker, Andrey Surzhykov