Born and raised in County Limerick, Ireland, Murnane became interested in physics through her father who was a primary school teacher.
[6] Dr. Murnane is a founder of the field of ultrafast X-ray science, having made transformational contributions to this area of research in every decade since the 1980s.
[8] The very high peak power of these ultrashort laser pulses makes it possible to coherently upconvert light to much shorter wavelengths, in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray region of the spectrum.
Prof. Murnane was the first to explore the use of femtosecond lasers for x-ray generation and has made substantive pioneering contributions to many aspects of this area of research, including the science and fundamental understanding of the high harmonic process, the laser technology required to use this process to implement practical tabletop light sources for applications, and in applying this new source to make fundamental discoveries in areas ranging from basic atomic and chemical dynamics to materials dynamics, to nanoimaging.
[9] She is also the co-founder of the laser company KMLabs, Inc.,[10] for which Intel Capital is a co-investor,[11] and which has commercialized these technologies for research and possible industrial applications in nanometrology.