Product Code Database
Alfred Kastler (; 3 May 1902 – 7 January 1984) was a German-born French physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics. He is known for the development of optical pumping.
Collaborating with Jean Brossel, he researched quantum mechanics, the interaction between light and , and spectroscopy. Kastler, working on combination of optical resonance and magnetic resonance, developed the technique of "optical pumping". Those works led to the completion of the theory of and .
In 1962, he received the first C.E.K Mees Medal from the Optical Society of America, and he was elected an Honorary member of the Society. The following year, he was elected a Fellow.
He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1966 "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms".
He was president of the board of the Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée and served as the first chairman of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Action Against Hunger.
Kastler also wrote poetry (in German language). In 1971 he published Europe, ma patrie: Deutsche Lieder eines französischen Europäers (i.e. Europe, my fatherland: German songs of a French European).
In 1976, Kastler was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
In 1978 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1979, Kastler was awarded the Wilhelm Exner Medal.Editor, ÖGV. (2015). Wilhelm Exner Medal. Austrian Trade Association. ÖGV. Austria.
Over the forty years that followed, this group trained many young physicists, including Nobel laureates Claude Cohen Tannoudji and Serge Haroche, and had a significant impact on the development of atomic physics in France. The Laboratoire de Spectroscopie hertzienne was renamed Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel in 1994. It has part of its laboratories in Université Pierre et Marie Curie but mainly at the École Normale Supérieure.
|
|
