Professor Rand’s research focuses on fundamental questions in laser physics, cooperative nonlinear optics and optical nanosystems. It covers wide-ranging experiments on upconversion lasers, random laser phosphors, intrinsically bistable luminescence, photon echoes, photon localization, and quantum size effects in solids. The main laboratory tool is ultrahigh-resolution, nonlinear laser spectroscopy. This includes hole-burning, photo-luminescence, cathodoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy, femtosecond transient fourwave mixing and other techniques, such as coherent optical magnetic resonance. Recent experiments have reported intrinsic bistability in the emission of concentrated rare earth materials, explored the origin of this effect, and used it to set limits on the practical miniaturization of rare earth lasers and amplifiers. Ongoing investigations are uncovering the operating principles of upconversion and random lasers, demonstrating continuous-wave laser action in nanophosphors for the first time, and creating stationary light in dielectrics. New projects are starting on “slow” light, quantum size effects in the relaxation processes of rare earth ions in dielectric nanocrystals, plasmon shape resonances in the interaction of light with metal-doped dendrimer molecules, and on ultra-high-power laser action in transparent ceramics.

Intense Nonlinear Magnetic Dipole Radiation at Optical Frequencies: Molecular Scattering in a Dielectric Liquid, (Samuel L. Oliveira and Stephen C. Rand), Physical Review Letters PRL 98, 093901 (2007).

Electrical Generation of Stationary Light in Random Scattering Media, (S.M. Redmond, S.L. Oliveira, G.L. Armstrong, H.Y. Chan, E. Mattson, A. Mock, B. Li, J.R. Potts, S.C. Rand, J. Marchal, T. Hinklin, and R.M. Laine), J.O.S.A. B21, 214 (2004).

Bright Storage of Light, (S.C. Rand), Optics & Photonics News 14, 32 (2003).

Intrinsic Chromatic Switching in Er,Yb:CsCdBr₃, (S.M. Redmond and S.C. Rand), Opt. Lett. 28, 173 (2003).

Continuous-Wave Ultraviolet Laser Action in Strongly Scattering Nd-Doped Alumina, (B. Li, G.R. Williams, S.C. Rand, T. Hinklin, and R.M. Laine), Opt. Lett. 27, 394 (2002).

Laser Action in Rare-Earth-Doped Dielectric Nanophosphors, (G. Williams, B. Bayram, S.C. Rand, T. Hinklin, and R.M. Laine), Phys. Rev. A 65, 013807 (2001).

Ultrafast, Cross-Correlated Harmonic Imaging Through Scattering Media, (A. Kuditcher, M.P. Hehlen, B. Hoover, E. Leith, and S.C. Rand), Appl. Opt. 40, 45 (2001).

Non-Radiative Dynamics of Avalanche Upconversion in Tm ³⁺:LiYF₄, (M. Hehlen. A. Kuditcher, A. L. Lenef, H. Ni, Q. Shu, and S.C. Rand, J. Rai, and S. Rai), Phys. Rev. B 61, 1116 (2000).

Intrinsic Bistability of Luminescence and Stimulated Emission in Yb and Tm-Doped Glass, (A. Kuditcher, M.P. Hehlen, C.M. Florea, K.M. Winick, and S.C. Rand), Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 1898 (2000).