Ali Javan
| Ali Javan | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
December 26, 1926 Tehran, Iran |
| Died | September 12, 2016 (aged 89) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | Iranian-American |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions |
Columbia Bell Labs MIT |
| Alma mater |
Columbia University of Tehran |
| Doctoral advisor | Charles Townes |
| Doctoral students | Michael S. Feld |
| Known for |
Gas laser Lasing without inversion Laser spectroscopy Timing frequency of light Atomic coherence |
| Notable awards |
Stuart Ballantine Medal (1962) Albert Einstein World Award of Science (1993) |
Ali Javan (Persian: علی جوان, translit. Ali Javān; December 26, 1926 – September 12, 2016) was an Iranian-American physicist and inventor at MIT. His main contributions to science have been in the fields of quantum physics and spectroscopy. He co-invented the gas laser in 1960, with William R. Bennett. In 2007, Javan was ranked Number 12 on The Daily Telegraph's list of the "Top 100 Living Geniuses".
Ali Javan was born in Tehran, but his parents were from Tabriz. They sent him to a school conducted by Zoroastrians. He graduated from Alborz High School, and started his university studies at the School of Science at the University of Tehran for a year. During a visit to New York in 1948, he attended some graduate courses at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in 1954 under his thesis advisor Charles Townes without having received a bachelor's or master's degree. In 1955 Javan held a position as a Post Doctoral in the Radiation Laboratory and worked with Townes on the atomic clock research, and used the microwave atom beam spectrometer to study the hyperfine structure of atoms like copper and thallium.
In 1957 he published a paper on the theory of a three-level maser, and his discovery of the stimulated Raman effect that a Stokes-shifted Raman transition can produce amplification without requiring a population inversion. The effect was the precursor of a class of effects known as Lasers Without Inversion, or the LWI effect. He joined Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1958 shortly after he conceived the working principle of his gas discharge Helium Neon laser, and subsequently submitted his paper for publication which was reviewed by Samuel Goudsmit in 1960.
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