Schawlow, Arthur Leonard (1921-1999), an American physicist, helped develop the laser. He shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1981 with Nicolaas Bloembergen, another physicist who worked on laser development, and with Kai Siegbahn, who worked on electron spectroscopy.
Schawlow worked in the 1950’s with fellow American Charles H. Townes on the theory of how a laser could produce a narrow, powerful beam of light. The first practical instrument was built by Theodore Maiman in 1960. Laser beams are now widely used in household appliances such as compact disc players, in surgery, to measure distances, to make three-dimensional pictures called holograms, and in many other ways.
Arthur Leonard Schawlow was born on May 5, 1921, in Mount Vernon, New York. He graduated in physics at the University of Toronto and went on to earn a Ph.D. In 1949, Schawlow went to Columbia University in New York City for postdoctoral studies. There he started work with Charles Townes, and he met and married Townes’s sister Aurelia.
In 1951, Schawlow went to work at Bell Telephone Laboratories (then the research department of the Bell Telephone Company) and continued to work with Townes. In 1958, they proposed a device that would amplify light in the same way that the maser amplified radio waves. The maser converts weak microwave radiation into a stronger beam of radiation. See Maser . They designed a gas or crystal that could be flooded with ordinary light, boosting its atoms to higher-energy states. When light of the right wavelength (color) was passed into the material, the atoms were stimulated to release energy, giving out radiation. This radiation was all the same wavelength, and the waves were perfectly in step. All the energy stored in the atoms was released in one brilliant flash. The device was called a laser—an acronym for (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). A laser produces beams of light that are extremely intense, pure in color, and parallel-sided (meaning that their rays do not spread out). See Laser .
Schawlow died on April 28, 1999.
