[7] Although he intended to go on to a career in industry with Philips N.V. in Eindhoven, he left Europe at the urging of his father, Peter Mazur, to pursue a postdoctoral study with Nobel laureate Nicolaas Bloembergen at Harvard University.

After two years as a postdoctoral researcher working with Bloembergen, Mazur was offered a position of assistant professor at Harvard University.

Mazur's early work at Harvard focused on the use of short-pulse lasers to carry out spectroscopy of highly vibrationally excited molecules.

Mazur and his group have made many pioneering contributions to the field of ultrashort laser pulses and their interactions with matter ("femtosecond material science").

In parallel to the work on semiconductors, Mazur began studying the interaction of intense femtosecond pulses with transparent materials.

After irradiation by a train of femtosecond laser pulses in the presence of a halogen containing gas, the surface of silicon develops a self-organized microscopic structure of micrometer-sized cones.

[citation needed] In fact, according to an article in the March/April 2009 edition of Complexity, over 90% of instructors who have tried PI plan to continue to use it and incorporate it more into teaching.

[citation needed] Mazur has founded or co-founded at least two technology start-ups: SiOnyx, which makes infrared sensors,[10] and Learning Catalytics, which in April 2013 he sold to the Pearson educational corporation.