Orazio Svelto
Orazio Svelto (21 February 1936 – 10 January 2026) was an Italian physicist, professor, and author. He served as Emeritus Professor of Physics at Politecnico di Milano and worked mainly in laser physics and photonics. He studied ultrashort-pulse generation, laser resonator physics, and solid-state lasers, and helped invent the hollow-fiber compressor for optical pulses (HCF).
Education and career: He earned a degree in Nuclear Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 1960. From 1961 to 1963 he was a Research Associate at Stanford University’s Microwave Laboratory, supported by a CNR fellowship. Between 1963 and 1976 he held various roles at CNR, including Researcher, Head of Research, and Research Director. In 1966 he earned the Libera Docenza degree in Quantum Electronics, reaffirmed in 1972. From 1976 to 2010 he was a Full Professor of Quantum Electronics and Physics of Matter at Politecnico di Milano, becoming Emeritus in 2010. In 1976 he founded the Center for Quantum Electronics and Electronics Instrumentation, which he led until 2000 when it merged with the Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies at CNR. He also served as Vice-President of the Italian Association for Electronics and as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light.
Key contributions: In 1988 he and colleagues developed super-Gaussian mirrors for solid-state lasers with unstable resonators. In 1991 he helped create an efficient diode-pumped continuous-wave Er:Yb:glass laser. In 1996 his group demonstrated an optical compression technique that produced 10-femtosecond pulses with 240 microjoules using hollow-core waveguides and prism-based compression, and later achieved pulses below 5 fs with hollow-fiber broadening and dispersion compensation. That year he also helped achieve multigigawatt, sub-5-fs pulses with a high-energy compression system.
Publications and books: Svelto wrote many papers in journals such as Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters, and Optics Letters. He also authored books including Principles of Lasers and Problems in Laser Physics; Principles of Lasers has multiple editions and translations.
Awards: He received the Quantum Electronics Prize, the Italgas Prize, the Gold Medal of the President of the Italian Republic for science, culture and art, the Townes Medal from Optica, and the Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics.
Death: Orazio Svelto died in Milan on 10 January 2026 at the age of 89.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:26 (CET).