Bill Krupke: The 2022 SPIE Maiman Laser Award
Throughout his career, Bill Krupke has played a significant role nationally and internationally in laser science and technology. He began his professional life at the Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC), working on microwave radar technology while obtaining an MA in physics from UCLA in 1960. During this time, Maiman demonstrated the first laser at the Hughes Research Laboratory, an event which had a profound impression on Krupke who redirected his career to laser science. He designed and built one of the first ruby lidar systems at Honeywell, then joined the newly formed Aerospace Corporation which supported his doctoral degree work at UCLA. Following a post-degree return to the HAC laser division, Krupke co-founded the laser program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and led it as the deputy Y-division leader, chief scientist, and deputy program leader for nearly three decades. His impact has been immense across a full range of scientific contributions, visionary laboratory leadership, and the mentorship of many scientists who are now prominent members of the laser community. After retiring from LLNL, he formed the Applied Lasers/WFK Lasers LLC consultancy and has continued to develop concepts for laser solutions addressing emerging commercial and industrial laser-based applications.
Krupke co-founded many successful startup companies including Crystal Photonics, the dominant global manufacturer of Ce:LYSO scintillator crystals used in whole-body Position-Emission-Tomography systems, and NECSEL, a commercial manufacturer of Vertical External Cavity Lasers deployed worldwide in laser cinemas. He also served on the boards of highly successful laser companies during their critical growth phases, notably IPG Photonics and Uniphase (now JDSU, an optical telecom equipment company).
"My relationship with Bill Krupke goes back more than 40 years," reads the recently deceased IPG Photonics Chairman Valentin Gapontsev's letter of recommendation in support of Krupke's Maimain Laser Award nomination. "During the Cold War years, Bill, being already a prominent leader in the area of glass and crystalline laser materials and quantum electronics, visited the Soviet Union multiple times to engage with and pursue mutual scientific interests with Soviet laser scientists, including myself. Throughout his career, he provided outstanding scientific and technical leadership, developing a large number of novel laser materials and LLNL lasers, as well as diode-pumped solid state laser technologies for inertial fusion energy. The key to Bill's success is a combination of fundamental knowledge and unique intuition in laser physics, laser spectroscopy, and laser materials science as well as the capability to find and carefully foster with deep decency and trust the researchers true-heartedly dedicated to science and technology. He is a person of unusual ability and irreproachable character who, during more than 60 years of his fruitful carrier, established a scientific approach of developing novel laser materials as well as lasers that continue to serve the laser community and have been successfully commercialized for applications in multiple areas of science and technology. His prominent record of accomplishments rank him in a very high position shared by a very small number of the top laser scientists."
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Read more about Bill Krupke and the SPIE Maiman Laser Award.
