Brockhouse, Bertram Neville (1918-2003), was a Canadian pioneer of neutron spectroscopy, a technique in which materials are bombarded with the subatomic particles called neutrons in order to determine a material’s structure. He was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for physics, for the development of neutron spectroscopy, sharing it with Clifford Shull, who had developed the neutron diffraction technique (see Shull, Clifford Glenwood ). Overall, the prize was awarded for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron-scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter.
Brockhouse was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, on July 15, 1918. During World War II (1939-1945), he served in the Royal Canadian Navy, working on sonar equipment. After the war, he received financial assistance as a war veteran to study at the University of British Columbia. In 1947, he gained a bachelor’s degree. He gained a doctorate with research in the Low-Temperature Laboratory of the University of Toronto, Canada.
Brockhouse then began work at the Chalk River nuclear reactor in Ontario, working with floods of neutrons from the reactor. Neutrons are electrically uncharged particles found in the heart of the atom (see Subatomic particle ). He fired streams of neutrons into crystalline materials, and they were scattered by the atoms. The neutrons gave up some energy to the crystal, setting the components of the crystal into vibration. Measuring the energy of the scattered neutrons gave information about the vibrations and hence about the manner of bonding of the atoms. Brockhurst’s neutron-scattering experiments demonstrated the reality of phonons, which are quanta, or “particles,” of thermal energy in the form of sound or vibration.
Brockhurst developed neutron spectroscopy into a flourishing field of research. From 1962 to 1984, he served as a professor of physics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1984, he became a professor emeritus—that is, he retired from full-time teaching but remained associated with the university. He died on Oct. 13, 2003.
