Optical Sciences Nobel Laureates

October 4, 2005 -- The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Optical Sciences adjunct professor Roy Jay Glauber, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University, will share the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics.  He is being recognized "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence" -- his 1963 theoretical description of the quantum behavior of light, in which he laid the foundation for future developments in the emerging field of quantum optics.  Dr. Glauber will receive half of the Prize and will share the other half with John L. Hall of the University of Colorado and Theodor W. Hansch of the Institute for Quantum Optics.
 

Professor Nicolaas Bloembergen
Physics, 1981

  

Professor Willis E. Lamb, Jr.
Physics, 1955
Nicolaas Bloembergen, Professor of Optical Sciences, comes to the center of Optics Valley after more than 40 years at Harvard University, where he served as Gerhard Gade University Professor, inspiring two generations of physics students and nearly 60 PhD candidates.

Professor Bloembergen was awarded a Nobel Prize for his contributions to the field of nonlinear optics and to the development of laser spectroscopy. His research has included nuclear and electronic magnetic resonance, solid state masers and lasers, and nonlinear optics and spectroscopy. His work on proton spin relaxation times in water and aqueous solutions carried out in 1946 and 1947 under the guidance of his PhD thesis advisor, Edward M. Purcell, later became the basis for the medical diagnostic technique of magnetic resonance imaging: MRI.

Together with his co-workers, Professor Bloembergen developed a rigorous theory of nonlinear polarizability, the extension of Maxwell’s equations to include nonlinear source terms and the interaction of multiple waves in the bulk and at the boundaries of nonlinear media. This latter work let to the extension of the laws of reflection and refraction.

Professor Bloembergen is a recipient of the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in 1978, the National Medal of Science, awarded by the President of the United States in 1974, the Medal of Honor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the Frederick Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America. He is a member of various Academies in the United States and abroad and served as president of the American Physical Society in 1991. In addition to his service on the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, he was also a visiting professor in Paris, Leiden, Bangalore, Munich, Berkeley, and Pasadena, and has been a visiting scientist at Optical Sciences for the past five years. He has served on numerous advisory committees of U.S. Government agencies and of industrial and academic institutions.

Professor Bloembergen is the author of two monographs, Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation and Nonlinear Optics and he has published more than three hundred and fifty papers in scientific journals.

 Professor Willis E. Lamb, Jr. is the recipient of the 1955 Nobel Prize in physics for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum, which led to a
re-evaluation of the theory of the interaction of electrons and electromagnetic radiation. He is the discoverer of a phenomenon called the Lamb shift, which revolutionized the quantum theory of matter, a predictor of the Lamb-Dicke-Mossbaur Effect, and published research results that anticipated the maser. He specializes in quantum mechanics, in the study of the interaction of radiation and matter, including the theory of lasers, and has conducted research into the quantum theory of measurement.

In December 2000, President Clinton awarded Professor Lamb a prestigious National Medal of Science for his towering contributions to classical and quantum theories of laser radiation and quantum optics, and to the proper interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics.

Professor Lamb’s list of honors and awards includes Honorary Membership in the Optical Society of America, a 1992 Einstein Medal from the Society for Optical and Quantum Electronics, a Senior Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Honorary Fellowship in the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Honorary Life Membership in the New York Academy of Sciences, Honorary Fellowship in the Institute of Physics and Physical Society, Membership in the National Academy of Sciences, a 1962 Yeshiva University Award, a 1960 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 1958 Guthrie Award from the Physical Society (London), a 1955 Research Corporation Award, and a 1953 Rumford Premium from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Lamb did his graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley, where his thesis research in theoretical physics was directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer. After graduation in 1938, Dr. Lamb joined the Columbia University physics faculty, working at the Columbia Radiation Laboratory, where in 1946 he conceived the experiment that led to his Nobel Prize. In 1951, Dr. Lamb joined the faculty at Stanford, eventually going on to teach at Oxford and Yale universities before joining Optical Sciences in 1974.