Adaptive femtosecond laser pulse shaping for High Harmonic ...

Acknowledgements
Everything began in winter 1998 when I attended a lecture on EUV- and X-ray
optics by Prof. Ulrich Heinzmann and PD Dr. Markus Drescher. They offered
me the opportunity to take part in a practical training on synchrotron radiation
at BESSY I in spring 1999. At this time I first met most of the members of
the group that I just knew from the lecture and I really enjoyed the night shifts
with PD Dr. Markus Drescher and former members of the group Dr. Bernd
Schmidtke and Dr. Tarek Khalil.
In october 2000 PD Dr. Markus Drescher invited me to the Institute of Photonics
at the TU-Wien for a practical training participating in a project in collaboration
with Prof. Ferenc Krausz and asked me if I would be interested to join his
working group and do my diploma thesis at the EUV-laser source in Bielefeld investigating
and improving the process of High Harmonic Generation after I have
finished my other examinations.
He offered me some topics he has been thinking of and the utilization of Adaptive
Optics appeared the most interesting and at last the most difficult one to me and
has been a challenge I wanted to master. I really do not know whether he could
believe in the success of these concepts at that time and I am really grateful that
he gave me the opportunity to work on such a complex diploma thesis and gave
me any kind of freedom working on that topic. Finally his enthusiasm on the
”marriage” of the principles of Adaptive Optics and High Harmonic Generation
has been infecting!
IoweProf. Heinzmann and him gratitude for the opportunities they gave me
during my studies in Bielefeld beyond working on my diploma thesis. Especially
the possibility to take part in research at BESSY II several times and gain experiences
in synchrotron radiation, ultra high vacuum physics and spin polarization.
I really enjoyed the times at BESSY II with PD Dr. Markus Drescher and all
other colleges I have met there and hopefully they did as well.
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