Lasers

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Philip Anfinrud, Senior Biomedical Research Scientist, National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, at the National Institutes of Health. Anfinrud likens his work environment to the “Bell Labs of Biophysics” and he expresses his pride in working with colleagues conducting research at the cutting-edge of their respective fields. He recounts his upbringing in small town North Dakota and how he developed his early interests in atmospheric chemistry. Anfinrud describes the circumstances leading to his graduate work at Berkeley, and how he approached his interests in physics from a physical chemistry perspective. He describes his work with Walter Struve on energy transport and picosecond lasers, and he describes his postdoctoral research with Robin Hochstrasser at the University of Pennsylvania where he worked on infrared spectroscopy on the femtosecond time scale. Anfinrud discusses his first faculty appointment at Harvard, and he describes the process building a laser lab in partnership with Mitsubishi. Anfinrud explains his research on myoglobin and photolysis laser pulses, and he describes his first forays in X-ray radiation and crystallography. He describes his move to the NIH, where he created Laboratory of Ultrafast Biophysical Chemistry. Anfinrud explains the value of NMR spectroscopy to understand protein folding, and he describes how his interests are situated more in the realm of basic science and not clinically-oriented research. He discusses the value of scaling laws in physics as a means for understanding biochemical phenomena, and he describes the numerous ways that the NIH provides an ideal environment for research. At the end of the interview, Anfinrud provides an overview of his current research in time-resolved crystallography and single molecule behavior, and he describes the public health impact of his work on speech droplets as a means of transmitting the coronavirus.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews William T. Silfvast, Professor Emeritus of Optics at the University of Central Florida. Silfvast recounts his childhood in Salt Lake City and he discusses his education at the University of Utah and a formative internship he spent at NASA Ames Laboratory. He describes his growing interests in lasers during graduate school at Utah working under the direction of Grant Fowles. Silfvast discusses his postdoctoral research as a NATO fellow at Oxford before he joined the Electronics Research Lab at Bell. He describes his major research work at Bell discovering new types of lasers, using optical detectors and photomultipliers for this research, and he explains his motivations in both basic research and the practical applications he saw for lasers in healthcare and in industry. Silfvast explains his decision to join the University of Central Florida where CREOL, the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers was getting started. He recounts the enormous growth and success of the Center over the past thirty years, and he explains his motivations for writing Fundamentals of Lasers which is considered a standard text in the field. At the end of the interview, Silfvast reflects on his contributions to laser science, he provides an overview of all the ways lasers have become central to modern existence, and he explains how modern computing has revolutionized laser science and applications.     

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Persis Drell, James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor in the School of Engineering, Provost of Stanford, and former Director of SLAC. Drell recounts her childhood as the daughter of the eminent physicist Sid Drell and what it was like to grow up in this milieu, and she emphasizes her lack of interest in physics as a child. She explains her decision to attend Wellesley for her undergraduate education, and she describes the benefits she felt she gained in attending a woman's college where Professor Phyllis Fleming turned her on to physics. Drell discusses her graduate work at Berkeley, where her key mentors were Gene Commins, Dave Jackson, and George Trilling and where she developed her thesis research on systematic errors that could cause false asymmetries. She describes her postgraduate work at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where she switched to high-energy experimental physics and began her work at SLAC. Drell describes the changing culture at SLAC in the 1980s and 1990s, and the structural changes that compelled the Lab to branch out to new scientific pursuits. She discusses her decision to join the faculty at Cornell where she focused on data analysis for the CLEO particle detector and Cornell Electron-positron Storage Ring (CESR) projects, and conveys the supportive culture of Cornell.  Drell describes the circumstances that compelled her to return to SLAC as director of research. She discusses the increasing importance of astrophysics and the B factory to SLAC's research agenda and the strategic challenges facing the Gamma-ray Space Telescope project. Drell explains the considerations leading to her being named lab director and some of the structural challenges in managing the relationship between SLAC and the Department of Energy (DOE). She describes the technical triumph of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and the opportunities for better integration of SLAC with Stanford proper during her tenure, and she explains her decision to become dean of engineering at Stanford and then provost. Drell describes her most important responsibilities as provost, and at the end of the interview, she reviews some of the fundamental challenges that Stanford is facing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and explains why, despite these challenges, students should feel optimistic about the future. 

In this interview, Joanna Behrman, Assistant Public Historian for AIP, interviews Marta Dark McNeese, Associate Professor of Physics at Spelman College. McNeese recounts her childhood in Maryland and early interest in science. She describes her decision to attend the University of Virginia and to major in physics. McNeese discusses the climate she experienced during graduate school at MIT and her support network. She further elaborates on her graduate research with Michael Feld on the ablation of biological materials by lasers. She describes work as a postdoc at the Naval Research Lab and how she was drawn to join Spelman College. McNeese recounts how Etta Falconer was instrumental in growing the physics department at Spelman. McNeese discusses mentoring students at the undergraduate level and the importance of women’s colleges and HBCUs. At the end of the interview, she describes the development of her research in biophysics and her involvement with APS and NSBP.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews David Pritchard, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT. He recounts his childhood in New York and discusses his early interests in science and the influence of his father, who was an electrical engineer. Pritchard explains his decision to attend Caltech as an undergraduate, and he conveys the reverence that he and fellow undergraduates felt for Feynman. He describes his natural gravitation toward experimentation and discusses his formative summer job at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator. Pritchard discusses his graduate work at Harvard and he relates some of the stylistic distinctions of Schwinger and Feynman. He describes his research in the lab of Dan Kleppner, who was working on the hydrogen maser, and he discusses his dissertation project on laser atomic scattering. Pritchard explains the events leading to his tenure at MIT, and he describes the negative impact of the Vietnam War on federal funding for basic science. He explains the origins of his interests in aliens and alien abductions, and he discusses how he brought an academic physics perspective to this field. Pritchard discusses some of the metaphysical or spiritual implications of his work on alien research, and he shares his ideas on the concept that knowledge is a social construct. At the end of the interview, Pritchard explains some of the through lines that connect all of his theoretical and experimental work, and he considers the impact of technological improvements over the decades on his research.

In this interview Richard Garwin discusses topics such as: low-temperature physics, cryogenics, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, hydrogen bomb, International Business Machines (IBM), superconductivity, nuclear magnetic resonance, John Tukey, fast Fourier transforms, computers, Erwin Hahn, patents and licenses, lasers.This interview is part of a collection of interviews on the life and work of Richard Garwin. To see all associated interviews, click here.

Research on masers and lasers at RCA's Princeton Laboratories, 1955-1961. Work on the Dicke hot-grid cell maser. The 3-level solid-state maser program. Entrance into laser-work after Theodore Maiman's announcement of an operating ruby laser. Also prominently mentioned are: Nicolaas Bloembergen, Robert Henry Dicke, Hank Reudrich Gerritsen, Herriott, Ali Javan, Henry Lewis, Theodore Maiman, and Rolf Peter.

Narrative account of discovery of the visible red HeNe laser in the Bell Laboratories Exploratory Development Group under Signal Corps contract, contributions of coworkers and supervisors, White's work on the arc lamp for cw pumping, collaboration with Dane Rigden (1962), knowledge of Javan-Bennett-Herriott infrared laser work and work of Spectra-Physics group, equipment and funding, atmosphere in the laboratory following the discovery.

Whinnery trained many prominent maser and laser scientists in his University of California, Berkeley Electrical Engineering laboratories. This interview touches briefly on the functioning of the Electrical Engineering department from about 1950 to the early 1970s, Whinnery’s own research into laser subjects like thermal lensing, his relation to National Science Foundation funders, and his students and their projects.

Particular scientific style; start as an electrical engineer; work on beam frequency standards with H. Richard Johnson; narrowing of the beam, frequency stabilization; work on phase-locking microwave amplifiers; discusses his consulting work at Hughes; search for alternate solution; ideas for increasing gain bandwidth; paper published in Physical Review "Quantum Mechanical Amplifiers";difference from other papers (Bob Pound's and Mohler's) on same subject; colloquim at MIT on paramagnetic resonance; solution to noise problem; start of group; working from scratch to build own magnet; work with Pound.