Dutch-born American physicist
Nicolaas Bloembergen
(March 11, 1920 ? September 5, 2017) was a
Dutch
-
American
physicist
and
Nobel laureate
, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind
nonlinear optics
for
laser spectroscopy
.
[1]
During his career, he was a professor at
Harvard University
and later at the
University of Arizona
and at Leiden University in 1973 (as Lorentz Professor).
Bloembergen shared the 1981
Nobel Prize in Physics
along with
Arthur Schawlow
and
Kai Siegbahn
because their work "has had a profound effect on our present knowledge of the constitution of matter" through the use of
laser spectroscopy
. In particular, Bloembergen was singled out because he "founded a new field of science we now call
non-linear optics
" by mixing "two or more beams of laser light... in order to produce laser light of a different wave length" and thus significantly broaden the laser spectroscopy frequency band.
[2]
Early life
[
edit
]
Bloembergen was born in
Dordrecht
on March 11, 1920, where his father was a chemical engineer and executive.
[2]
He had five siblings, with his brother
Auke
later becoming a legal scholar.
[3]
In 1938, Bloembergen entered the
University of Utrecht
to study physics. However, during
World War II
, the
German authorities
closed the university and Bloembergen spent two years in hiding.
[2]
Career
[
edit
]
Graduate studies
[
edit
]
Bloembergen left the war-ravaged Netherlands in 1945 to pursue graduate studies at
Harvard University
under Professor
Edward Mills Purcell
.
[4]
Through Purcell, Bloembergen was part of the prolific academic lineage tree of
J. J. Thomson
, which includes many other Nobel Laureates, beginning with Thomson himself (Physics Nobel, 1906) and
Lord Rayleigh
(Physics Nobel, 1904),
Ernest Rutherford
(Chemistry Nobel 1908),
Owen Richardson
(Physics Nobel, 1928), and finally Purcell (Physics, Nobel 1952).
[5]
Bloembergen's other influences include
John Van Vleck
(Physics Nobel, 1977) and
Percy Bridgman
(Physics Nobel, 1946).
[6]
Six weeks before his arrival, Purcell and his graduate students Torrey and Pound discovered
nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR).
[4]
Bloembergen was hired to develop the first NMR machine. At Harvard he attended lectures by
Schwinger
,
Van Vleck
, and
Kemble
.
[2]
Bloembergen's NMR systems are the predecessors of modern-day
MRI machines
, which are used to examine internal organs and tissues.
[7]
Bloembergen's research on NMR led to an interest in
masers
, which were introduced in 1953 and are the predecessors of lasers.
[8]
Bloembergen returned to the Netherlands in 1947, and submitted his thesis
Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation
at the
University of Leiden
.
[9]
This was because he had completed all the preliminary examinations in the Netherlands, and
Cor Gorter
of Leiden offered him a
postdoctoral appointment
there.
[9]
He received his
Ph.D.
degree from Leiden in 1948, and then was a postdoc at Leiden for about a year.
[2]
Professorship
[
edit
]
In 1949, he returned to Harvard as a junior fellow of the
Society of Fellows
.
[5]
In 1951, he became an associate professor; he then became Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics in 1957;
Rumford Professor of Physics
in 1974; and Gerhard Gade University Professor in 1980.
[10]
In 1990 he retired from Harvard.
[10]
In addition, Bloembergen served as a visiting professor. From 1964 to 1965, Bloembergen was a visiting professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
.
[2]
In 1996?1997, he was a visiting scientist at the college of optical sciences of the
University of Arizona
; he became a professor at Arizona in 2001.
[11]
Bloembergen was a member of the board of sponsors of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
and honorary editor of the
Journal of Nonlinear Optical Physics & Materials
.
[12]
Laser spectroscopy
[
edit
]
By 1960 while at Harvard, he experimented with
microwave spectroscopy
.
[8]
Bloembergen had modified the
maser
of
Charles Townes
,
[13]
and in 1956, Bloembergen developed a crystal maser, which was more powerful than the standard gaseous version.
[9]
With the advent of the laser, he participated in the development of the field of
laser spectroscopy
, which allows precise observations of atomic structure using lasers. Following the development of
second-harmonic generation
by
Peter Franken
and others in 1961, Bloembergen studied how a new structure of matter is revealed, when one bombards
matter
with a focused and high-intensity beam of
photons
. This he termed the study of
nonlinear optics
. In reflection to his work in a Dutch newspaper in 1990, Bloembergen said: "We took a standard textbook on optics and for each section we asked ourselves what would happen if the intensity was to become very high. We were almost certain that we were bound to encounter an entirely new type of physics within that domain".
[7]
From this theoretical work, Bloembergen found ways to combine two or more laser sources consisting of photons in the
visible light frequency range
to generate a single laser source with photons of different frequencies in the
infrared
and
ultraviolet
ranges, which extends the amount of atomic detail that can be gathered from laser spectroscopy.
[8]
Personal life and death
[
edit
]
Bloembergen met Huberta Deliana Brink (Deli) in 1948 while on vacation with his university's Physics Club. She was able to travel with him to the United States in 1949 on a student hospitality exchange program; he proposed to her when they arrived in the States, and were married by 1950 on return to Amsterdam.
[14]
They were both
naturalized
as citizens of the
United States
in 1958.
[10]
They had three children.
[14]
Bloembergen died on September 5, 2017, at an assisted living facility in his hometown
Tucson, Arizona
, of cardiorespiratory failure, at the age of 97.
[15]
[16]
[17]
Biography
[
edit
]
In 2016 a Dutch biography
[18]
was published, and in 2019 an English one.
[19]
Awards and Honors
[
edit
]
Bloembergen shared the 1981
Nobel Prize in Physics
with
Arthur Schawlow
, along with
Kai Siegbahn
. The Nobel Foundation awarded Bloembergen and Schawlow "for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy".
[13]
[20]
- Corresponding member,
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
, Amsterdam, 1956
[21]
- Fellow of the American Physical Society
, 1955
[22]
- Fellow,
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, 1956
[23]
- Guggenheim Fellow
, 1957
[24]
- Oliver Buckley Prize
, American Physical Society, 1958
[25]
- IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award
,
Institute of Radio Engineers
, 1959
[5]
- Member,
National Academy of Sciences
, Washington, D.C., 1960
[26]
- Stuart Ballantine Medal
,
Franklin Institute
, Philadelphia, 1961
[5]
- National Medal of Science
, President of the United States of America, 1974
[27]
- Lorentz Medal
,
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
, Amsterdam, 1978
[28]
- Foreign Honorary Member,
Indian Academy of Sciences
, Bangalore, 1978
[29]
- Frederic Ives Medal
,
Optical Society of America
, 1979
[5]
- Von Humboldt Senior Scientist, 1980
[5]
- Associe Etranger,
Academie des Sciences
, Paris, 1981
[5]
- Member,
American Philosophical Society
, 1982
[30]
- Member,
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
, 1983
[31]
- Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics
,
University of New South Wales
, Sydney, 1983
[32]
- Member Emeritus,
United States National Academy of Engineering
, 1984
[33]
- Honorary Doctor of Science from Harvard University, 2000
[34]
- Bijvoet Medal of the
Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research
of
Utrecht University
, 2001
[35]
Legacy
[
edit
]
On March 11, 2020, the day of Bloembergen's 100th birthday, a team of researchers at the
University of New South Wales
published an article in
Nature
, demonstrating for the first time the successful coherent control of the nucleus of a single atom using only electric fields, an idea first proposed by Bloembergen back in 1961.
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Nobelprijswinnaar Nicolaas Bloembergen (97) overleden"
.
Universiteit Leiden
. September 6, 2017.
Archived
from the original on September 8, 2017
. Retrieved
May 3,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Nobel Foundation
1981 Nobel Presentation Speech by Professor Ingvar Lindgren
Archived
October 11, 2007, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Rob Herber.
"Nico Bloembergen, fysicus in licht"
(PDF)
(in Dutch). Historische Kring De Bilt.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on October 12, 2016
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
a
b
Edward Mills Purcell
. NAP.edu. 2000.
doi
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10.17226/9977
.
ISBN
978-0-309-07035-5
.
Archived
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2017
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- ^
a
b
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d
e
f
g
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Archived
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. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
David L. Hubber.
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. APS.org.
Archived
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. Retrieved
September 6,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
"Nicolaas Bloembergen"
.
Utrecht University
.
Archived
from the original on September 7, 2017
. Retrieved
September 6,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Nicolaas Bloembergen"
. Mediatheque.
Archived
from the original on September 7, 2017
. Retrieved
September 6,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
Nicolaas Bloembergen;
Edward Mills Purcell
;
Robert V. Pound
(1948).
"Relaxation effects in nuclear magnetic resonance absorption"
(PDF)
.
Physical Review
.
73
(7): 679.
Bibcode
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1948PhRv...73..679B
.
doi
:
10.1103/PhysRev.73.679
.
Archived
(PDF)
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- ^
a
b
c
"Nicolaas Bloembergen"
.
IEEE Global History Network
. IEEE.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2012
. Retrieved
July 18,
2011
.
- ^
OSC Faculty
Nicolaas Bloembergen
Archived
October 17, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
World Scientific.
Journal of Nonlinear Optical Physics & Materials
.
Journal Editorial Board
.
- ^
a
b
"Today in Engineering History: The Laser Is Patented"
. PDDNet. March 22, 2016.
Archived
from the original on September 7, 2017
. Retrieved
September 6,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Bloembergen, Nicolaas (1981).
"Nicolaas Bloembergen ? Biographical"
.
The Nobel Foundation
.
Archived
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- ^
"Nicolaas Bloembergen"
.
www.nasonline.org
.
Archived
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. Retrieved
May 3,
2018
.
- ^
Weil, Martin (September 9, 2017).
"Nicolaas Bloembergen, winner of Nobel Prize in physics, dies at 97"
.
Archived
from the original on September 15, 2017
. Retrieved
May 3,
2018
– via www.washingtonpost.com.
- ^
Fleur, Nicholas St (September 11, 2017).
"Nicolaas Bloembergen, Who Shared Nobel for Advances With Laser Light, Dies at 97"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on September 21, 2017
. Retrieved
May 3,
2018
.
- ^
Herber, Rob (2016).
Nico Bloembergen. Meester van het licht
. Delft, The Netherlands: Eburon.
ISBN
978-90-5972-815-8
.
- ^
Herber, Rob (2019).
Nico Bloembergen. Master of Light
. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
ISBN
978-3-030-25736-1
.
- ^
"The Nobel Prize in Physics 1981"
.
The Nobel Foundation
. 1981.
Archived
from the original on November 13, 2017
. Retrieved
September 6,
2017
.
- ^
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. Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from
the original
on July 21, 2015.
- ^
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. APS
. Retrieved
June 13,
2020
.
- ^
"Professor Nicolaas Bloembergen"
. American Academy of Arts and Sciences
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"Nicolaas Bloembergen"
. Guggenheim Foundation.
Archived
from the original on June 10, 2016
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
"1958 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize Recipient"
. American Physical Society.
Archived
from the original on August 16, 2016
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
"Nicolaas Bloembergen"
. National Academy of Sciences. Archived from
the original
on August 7, 2016
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
"The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details Nicolaas Bloembergen"
. National Science Foundation.
Archived
from the original on August 7, 2016
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
"Laureates Lorentz Medal"
. Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Archived
from the original on March 5, 2016
. Retrieved
June 18,
2016
.
- ^
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. Indian Academy of Sciences.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
search.amphilsoc.org
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.
- ^
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.
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Archived
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October 10,
2017
.
- ^
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.
Trove
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October 20,
2023
.
- ^
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. United States National Academy of Engineering.
Archived
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. Retrieved
June 18,
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.
- ^
gazetteimport (June 8, 2000).
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.
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2024
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. Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research. Archived from
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on September 12, 2017
. Retrieved
September 12,
2017
.
- ^
Asaad, Serwan; Mourik, Vincent; Joecker, Benjamin; Johnson, Mark A. I.; Baczewski, Andrew D.; Firgau, Hannes R.; M?dzik, Mateusz T.; Schmitt, Vivien; Pla, Jarryd J.; Hudson, Fay E.; Itoh, Kohei M. (March 2020).
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.
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:
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.
doi
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.
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.
PMID
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.
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.
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