Marie-Emmanuelle Couprie wins the Charpak-Ritz Award 2021

The Charpak-Ritz Prize 2021 is awarded to Marie-Emmanuelle Couprie, Researcher at the 2.75 GeV electron synchrotron SOLEIL, located south of Paris, for her outstanding contributions in:

light sources using particle accelerators to emit synchrotron radiation of high spectral purity and high degrees of longitudinal and transverse coherence, in particular her research programme in recent years moved towards compact and free electron lasers (FEL). As a major actor in a very competitive research field, Marie-Emmanuelle Couprie achieved outstanding results relevant for the physics and technology of accelerators at the core of the synchrotron light emitted by FELs. The jury appreciated also the excellent and very fruitful collaborations at the international level and with the Swiss community at Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen /Switzerland for magnetic measurements.

Marie-Emmanuelle Couprie, researcher at Synchrotron SOLEIL, head of the Magnetism and Insertion Device group and in charge of piloting the Free Electron Laser activities, she is a world-wide known FEL specialist, expert of accelerator physics and innovative scientific technologies.

Her outstanding records span the entire FEL theory, FEL dynamics (chaos, non-linear dynamics, microwave instabilities) and the interplay with electron beam evolution. She has played a crucial role for the development of the first FEL user applications in the UV range with pump probe two color experiments.

Marie-Emmanuelle has brought a unique contribution to the understanding and optimization of the performance of the FEL and she has pioneered the successful experimental demonstration of seeding a FEL with High-order Harmonic Generation in gas (HHG).

She has an outstanding track record of referred publications and invitations to conferences. Her strong implication in the development of technology with Industries (mirrors, insertions devices, cutting edge instrumentation like streak camera, dissector,..) resulted in a successful development of high quality mirrors for the inherently large optical cavity of the FEL, initiating collaborations with international companies.

Her expertise has been naturally dedicated to the short pulses and coherent synchrotron radiation issue. She is head of the COXINEL (COherent Xray source INferred from Electrons accelerated by Laser) project, 2012-ongoing, Principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant, 2014-2019 for the development of laser plasma accelerated based undulator and free electron laser radiation where she demonstrates her capabilities in attracting talents and in cross-fertilizing a large diversity of world-wide collaborations.

Her unique talents in science and her fluency in foreign languages beyond English allowed her to join several invited professor positions in Japan, Russia, Italy, and USA. She has collaborated with PSI for magnetic measurements and currently she co-chairs the Insertion Device task group of LEAPS (League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources), in charge of WP6 of the InfraInnov-proposal.