Solid state physics

This is an interview with Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy, Engineering and Applied Sciences Emeritus at Harvard. He recounts his childhood in India and he explains the origins of his nickname “Venky” by which everyone knows him, and he explains his transition from a career primarily rooted in lab work to his more current interests in science and national public policy. He describes the imperial British influence that pervaded his upbringing, and he discusses his education at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. He explains the opportunities that lead to his graduate work at Cornell to study solid state physics with a focus on defects in crystals under the direction of Robert Pohl. Narayanamurti describes his brief return to India before he was recruited to work at Bell Labs where he ultimately rose to serve as Director of Solid-state Electronics and as head of the Semiconductor Electronics Research Department. He contextualizes his decision to join the faculty at UC Santa Barbara after working at Sandia National Lab against the backdrop of the impending breakup of Bell. He discusses his work at Dean building up the computer science, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering programs before he decided to come to Harvard where he was the founding Dean of the Engineering and Applied Sciences. He explains his interest in joining the Kennedy School as he became more interested in public policy. At the end of the interview, Narayanamurti conveys optimism that higher education in the United States will be equipped to study and offer key solutions to some of the key scientific and technological challenges of the future. 

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Kenneth Nordtvedt, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Montana State University. Nordtvedt recounts his childhood in suburban Chicago and he describes how he discovered his early talents in math and science. He discusses his undergraduate experience at MIT and he explains the formative impact that Sputnik had on his scientific interests. Nordtvedt discusses his graduate work at Stanford, where he studied with Marshall Sparks, and he explains his decision to leave the program early to return to MIT where he worked in the Instrumentation Lab. Nordtvedt describes his dissertation work at Stanford on the coupling of fermions to bosons, and his interest in pursuing research that would be mutually beneficial to elementary particle physics and solid state physics. He describes his postgraduate work on bubble chambers at Los Alamos, and he explains the origins of his interest in general relativity and the influence of Leonard Schiff. Nordtvedt describes his teaching and research career at Montana State, and his long-standing collaborations with NASA. He discusses some of his politically-oriented motivations to retire early, and at the end of the interview, Nordtvedt describes some of the contract physics work he has done in recent years. 

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Bertrand Halperin, Hollis Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy, Emeritus, at Harvard. Halerpin recounts his upbringing and education in Brooklyn, and his decision to study at Harvard as an undergraduate. He describes some of the leading physicists of the department during that time, and his developing interest and talent for theory. Halperin describes a formative summer internship at New York Life Insurance Company and his work at the dawn of the computer age, and another summer internship at Los Alamos, where he worked on a project on neutron scattering from aluminum. He explains his decision to move to Berkeley and then Princeton for graduate school where he developed his interest in solid state physics. Halperin describes his post-doctoral work in France and his subsequent job at Bell Labs, where he worked on dynamic critical phenomena. He describes being recruited back to Harvard by Paul Martin and his subsequent work on quantum Hall effects and one-dimensional systems research. In the last exchange of the interview, Halperin describes his current interests in experimental puzzles and the behavior of quantum systems.

In this interview Thomas Rossing discusses topics such as: his childhood; undergraduate work at Luther College; graduate work at Iowa State University; working with Sperry Rand; teaching at St. Olaf College; Peter Fossum; Northern Illinois University; solid state physics; magnetics; musical acoustics; Uno Ingard; Art Benade; visiting professorships at University of Edinburgh and Stanford University; Acoustical Society of America (ASA); president and time with the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT).

Grisdale's years at Bell Laboratories from 1930. Graduation as a chemistry major (with strong quantum theory interests) from Harvard University, 1930. Comments on the effect of the Depression and the work environment for researchers at Bell Labs (compared to university research laboratories); nonlinear resistor work, heat treatment (varistor, thermistor), synthetic microphone carbon; involvements in various departments after the war (Electronics Apparatus Department investigating selenium rectifiers) . Concepts of industrial research; the fifth circuit (papers by B. D. H. Tellegen at Phillips Laboratories); Clarence Lester Hogan. Also prominently mentioned are: William Baker, Joseph A. Becker, C. J. Christensen, Goucher, Green, Eloise Koonce, Sidney Millman, Stanley Owen Morgan, Gerald Leondus Pearson, Merle Rigterink, John Clarke Slater, Gordon K. Teal, Addison Hughson White, R. R. Williams, J. Wilson; Bell Telephone Laboratories Electronic Apparatus Department, and General Electric Company.

Family background and early education; University of Oklahoma; graduate work and electrical engineering at California Institute of Technology. Bell Laboratories, 1936-1946; colloquium and other social structures; early solid state physics work; Fletcher’s group with Foster Nix and William Shockley; war years, work on radar bomb sights; postwar years. Move to Hughes Aircraft Company, 1946-1953; formation and accomplishments of Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge after 1953; current interests. Also prominently mentioned are: Joseph A. Becker, R. S. Bowen, Walter Houser Brattain, Oliver E. Buckley, Joseph Ashby Burton, Karl Kelchner Darrow, Clinton Joseph Davisson, Paul Sophus Epstein, Conyers Herring, C. N. Hickman, Howard Hughes, J. B. Johnson, Edward Karrouse, Mervin J. Kelly, G. A. Kelsall, J. W. McRae, Robert Andrews Millikan, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Gerald Leondus Pearson, Don Quarles, Simon Ramo, Rhine, Duane Roller, Hellvar Skaade, William Ralph Smythe, Leopold Stokowski, Richard Chase Tolman, Charles Hard Townes, Howell J. Williams, Jewel Wurtzbaugh, Fritz Zwicky; American Physical Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States Air Force, and Western Electric Company.

Education including time as a student working with E. C. Stoner at Leeds; work on single particle ferromagnetisms and collective electron ferromagnetisms, research at Imperial college on magnetisms.

Family background and early education; studying chemistry at Occidental College. Work at Bell Labs (1930’s), the job freeze during the 1930’s Depression. Morgan’s work on dielectric constants. Columbia University, Rabi’s course, comparison of academic and industrial scientists. Colloquia and study groups, Darrow, Nix, Shockley. Transfer to Metallurgy Department, work on single crystals of zinc; The Bell Laboratories Record; work under Germer and Davisson, their experiments; work on carbon deposits on filaments using x-ray diffraction, Grisdale, W. E. Campbell. Evolution in role of basic research at Bell Labs; Kelly’s role; Buckley; Bell Labs conference (1954), AIP symposium. Awareness of work on copper oxide rectifiers by Becker, Davisson, Brattain; work on microphone carbon; Holden’s work on quartz; changes in the solid state program. Work during the war years; material research of Scaff and Grisdale; pn junction; technological application. Effects of war on solid state research, interactions with other solid state centers. Postwar years, work in Woolen’s group (1945), work in Wooldridge’s group; reasons for Bardeen’s leaving; Fisk’s group; development of transistor under Shockley.

Interview focuses on Sproull’s career at Cornell University, his decision to become Provost, later President, of the University of Rochester, and his efforts to create ‘steeples of excellence’ in physics, notably the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). Sproull discusses LLE’s founding years, including his assessment of Moshe Lubin’s ideas for laser ignition, attempts to raise state, federal, and private funds for LLE, tensions with other departments within the university, and LLE’s relationships with other laser laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore. Sproull considers the advantages and disadvantages of LLE’s approach, on a technical and a political level. He talks about LLE’s place in the community of optics at the university and in the larger Rochester community, and LLE’s role in terms of the National Ignition Facility.

Topics discussed include: family background; Slichter's time as a student at Harvard University; John Van Vleck; his time at the University of Illinois; solid state physics; Fred Seitz; discovery of superconductivity; Albert Overhauser; John Bardeen; Ginsberg-Landau theory; Bardeen-Cooper-Schreiffer (BCS) theory.