Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an Americanphysicist who, along withCharles Townes, developed the theoretical basis forlaser science. His central insight was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to takemaser action from microwaves to visible wavelengths. He shared the 1981Nobel Prize in Physics withNicolaas Bloembergen andKai Siegbahn for his work using lasers to determineatomic energy levels with great precision.[1][2]
Schawlow was born inMount Vernon, New York. His mother, Helen (Mason), was fromCanada, and his father, Arthur Schawlow, was a Jewishimmigrant fromRiga (then in theRussian Empire, now inLatvia). Schawlow was raised in his mother's Protestant religion.[3] When Arthur was three years old, they moved toToronto, Ontario, Canada.
He went on to accept a position atBell Labs in late 1951. He left in 1961 to join the faculty atStanford University as aprofessor. He remained at Stanford until he retired toemeritus status in 1996.
Schawlow coauthored the widely used textMicrowave Spectroscopy (1955) with Charles Townes. Schawlow and Townes were the first to publish the theory of laser design and operation in their seminal 1958 paper on "optical masers",[4] althoughGordon Gould is often credited with the "invention" of the laser, due to his unpublished work that predated Schawlow and Townes by a few months.[5] The first working laser was made in 1960 byTheodore Maiman.
In 1951, he married Aurelia Townes, younger sister of his postdoctoral advisor, Charles Townes. They had three children: Arthur Jr., Helen, and Edith. Arthur Jr. isautistic, with very little speech ability.
Schawlow and ProfessorRobert Hofstadter at Stanford, who also had an autistic child, teamed up to help each other find solutions to the condition. Arthur Jr. was put in a special center for autistic individuals, and later, Schawlow put together an institution to care for people with autism inParadise, California. It was later named theArthur Schawlow Center in 1999, shortly before his death. Schawlow was a promoter of the controversial method offacilitated communication with patients of autism.[7][8]
He considered himself to be an orthodox Protestant Christian, and attended a Methodist church.[3]Arthur Schawlow was an intense fan and collector of traditional Americanjazz recordings, as well as a supporter of instrumental groups performing this type of music.
Schawlow, A L (1995), "Principles of lasers",Journal of Clinical Laser Medicine & Surgery, vol. 13, no. 3 (published Jun 1995), pp. 127–30,doi:10.1089/clm.1995.13.127,PMID10150635
^Taylor, Nick (2000).LASER: The inventor, the Nobel laureate, and the thirty-year patent war. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 62–70.ISBN0-684-83515-0.OCLC122973716.
