Peeter Saari

Peeter Saari (born 2 June 1945) is an Estonian physicist whose work spans optical spectroscopy of solids, ultrafast optics and wave optics. He was a professor of wave optics at the University of Tartu (currently a professor emeritus) and has been a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences since 1986.

Early life and education Saari was born in Tallinn on 2 June 1945.

Career Saari's academic career has been closely associated with the Institute of Physics in Tartu, which was formerly part of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and later became part of the University of Tartu. Optica Fellow, 2017

Selected publications from P. Saari's various research fields (Complete list is available here )

Correlation of multiplets in different electronic transition of 1, 12 benzperylene in solid matrices (co-author T. Tamm). // Chem. Phys. Lett 30 (1975) 2 Hot luminescence and relaxation processes in resonant secondary emission of solid matter (co-author K. Rebane). // J. Lumin. 16 (1978) 3 Picosecond spectrochronography (co-author A. Freiberg). // IEEE J. Quant. Electr. QE-19 (1983) 4 Picosecond time- and space-domain holography by photochemical hole burning (co-authors R. Kaarli, A. Rebane). // J. Opt. Soc. Am. B (1986) 3, 4 Suppression of temporal spread of ultrashort pulses in dispersive media by Bessel beam generators (co-author H. Sõnajalg). // Optics Lett. 21 (1996) 15 Evidence of X-shaped propagationinvariant localized light waves (co-author K. Reivelt). // Phys. Rev. Lett. 79 (1997) 21 Optical generation of focus wave modes (co-author K. Reivelt). // J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 17 (2000) 10 Localized waves in femtosecond optics. // Ultrafast Photonics (eds. A. Miller, D. T. Reid, D. M. Finlayson). Inst. of Physics Publishing, Bristol, Philadelphia (2004) Generation and classification of localized waves by Lorentz transformations in Fourier space (co-author K. Reivelt). // Phys. Rev. E 69 (2004) 3 Laterally accelerating Airy pulses. // Opt. Express 16 (2008) 10303 Libateaduse anatoomiast ja taksonoomiast (Eng. transl.: On the anatomy and taxonomy of pseudoscience). // Akadeemia 20 (2008) 2225 Basic diffraction phenomena in time domain (co-authors P. Bowlan, H. Lukner, M. Lõhmus, P. Piksarv, R. Trebino). // Opt. Express 18 (2010) 11083 Photon localization revisited. // Quantum Optics and Laser Experiments (ed. S. Lyagushyn). InTech – Open Access Publisher, (2012) 49 Diffraction of ultrashort Gaussian pulses within the framework of boundary diffraction wave theory (co-authors P. Piksarv, P. Bowlan, M. Lõhmus, H. Valtna-Lukner, R. Trebino). // Journal of Optics 14 (2012) 015701 X-type waves in ultrafast optics. // Non-diffractive waves (eds. H. E. Hernández-Figueroa, M. Zamboni-Rached, and E. Recami, Wiley (2013) 109 On the vector model of angular momentum. // European Journal of Physics 37 (2016) 055403 Reexamination of group velocities of structured light pulses. // Phys. Rev. A, 97, (2018) 063824 Relativistic aberration and null Doppler shift within the framework of superluminal and subluminal nondiffracting waves (co-author I. Besieris). // J. Phys. Commun. 4 (2020) 105011 Wave pulses with unusual asymptotical behavior at infinity (co-author I. Besieris). // J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 42 (2025) 1810 Orbital and spin current density backflow in unidirectional monochromatic electromagnetic fields in vacuum (co-author I. Besieris). // J. Opt. 28 (2026) 065606