Philip H. Bucksbaum (born January 14, 1953, in Grinnell, Iowa) is an American atomic physicist, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science in the Departments of Physics, Applied Physics, and Photon Science at Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

[2][3] He develops and uses ultrafast strong field lasers to study fundamental atomic and molecular interactions, particularly coherent control of the quantum dynamics of electrons, atoms, and molecules using coherent radiation pulses from the far-infrared to hard x-rays, with pulse durations from picoseconds to less than a femtosecond.

In 2020, Bucksbaum received the Norman F. Ramsey Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, and in Precision Tests of Fundamental Laws and Symmetries for his pioneering explorations of ultrafast strong field physics from the optical to the X-ray regime.

[4] Bucksbaum spent his early childhood in Grinnell, a small farming and college community in south-central Iowa.

[12][13] Bucksbaum's graduate research at Berkeley was on the parity non-conserving neutral weak interaction in atomic thallium.

His early work on above threshold ionization of atoms established the role of ponderomotive forces in laser-electron interactions through studies of electron surfing in ultrafast laser pulses as well as the high-intensity Kapitsa–Dirac effect.