François Légaré

Dr. François Légaré (Fellow OPTICA, Fellow American Physical Society) is a chemical physicist who specializes in developing novel approaches for ultrafast science and technologies, as well as biomedical imaging with nonlinear optical microscopy (Ph.D. in chemistry, 2004 - co-supervised by Profs. André D. Bandrauk and Paul B. Corkum). Since 2013, he is Full Professor at the Energy Materials Telecommunications Centre of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS-EMT). From 2013 to 2023, he has been the scientific head of the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS). He is currently the director of INRS-EMT and CEO of the ALLS facility. Under his scientific leadership, INRS has received in 2017 a grant of 13.9M CDN$ from the CFI and the Quebec government, with 11.9M CDN$ to upscale the ALLS facility with high average power Ytterbium laser systems and advanced instrumentation for time-resolved material characterization. From 2023 to 2029, ALLS is funded by the Major Science Initiatives program of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, enabling the facility to realize its 2022-2027 strategic plan (https://alls.inrs.ca/governance). In career, he has supervised 52 interns, 19 M.Sc. and 24 Ph.D. students, and 24 postdoctoral fellows. 

LaserNetUS Affiliations:

• SPC member since 2019
   

Featured Publications:

1. Safaei R, Fan G, Kwon O, Légaré K, Lassonde P, Schmidt B, Ibrahim H, Légaré F. High-energy multidimensional solitary states in hollow-core fibres. Nature Photonics. 2020 October 26; 14(12):733-739. DOI: doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-00699-2 

2. Endo T, Neville S, Wanie V, Beaulieu S, Qu C, Deschamps J, Lassonde P, Schmidt B, FujiseH, Fushitani M, Hishikawa A, Houston P, Bowman J, Schuurman M, Légaré F, Ibrahim H. Capturing roaming molecular fragments in real time. Science. 2020 November 27; 370(6520):1072-1077. DOI: doi.org/10.1126/science.abc2960

3. Fan G, Carpeggiani P, Tao Z, Coccia G, Safaei R, Kaksis E, Pugzlys A, Légaré F, Schmidt B, Baltuška A. 70 mJ nonlinear compression and scaling route for an Yb amplifier using large-core hollow fibers. Optics Letters. 2021 February 12; 46(4):896-. DOI: doi.org/10.1364/OL.412296 

4. Fourmaux S, Lassonde P, Mironov S, Hallin E, Légaré F, Maclean S, Khazanov E, Mourou G, Kieffer J. Laser wakefield acceleration based x ray source using 225-TW and 13-fs laser pulses produced by thin film compression. Optics Letters. 2022 June 22; 47(13):3163-. DOI: doi.org/10.1364/OL.459199

5. Fan G, Légaré K, Cardin V, Xie X, Safaei R, Kaksis E, Andriukaitis G, Pugžlys A, Schmidt B, Wolf J, Hehn M, Malinowski G, Vodungbo B, Jal E, Lüning J, Jaouen N, Giovannetti G, Calegari F, Tao Z, Baltuška A, Légaré F, Balčiūnas T. Ultrafast magnetic scattering on ferrimagnets enabled by a bright Yb-based soft x-ray source. Optica. 2022 April 06; 9(4):399-. DOI: doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.443440