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In Memoriam: Sae Woo Nam, 1971 - 2024
Jan 21, 2024
Sae Woo Nam, Optica Fellow and pioneer in single-photon detectors, passed away on 21 January 2024, at the age of 53. While at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Nam and his colleagues developed a technique using superconducting detectors at ultracold temperatures, which became the most efficient single-photon detector in 2010. Nam was internationally recognized for his work, and the application of his research can be found in science and technology applications worldwide.
Nam grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in electrical engineering. He studied under Professor Blas Cabrera at Stanford University and completed his Ph.D. focused on developing superconducting detectors for dark matter searches. In 1999, Nam joined NIST as a National Research Council postdoc, where he continued his work in the area of photon detectors. After completing his postdoc, Nam joined NIST as a permanent staff member and would be there for twenty-five years. Over the course of his career, he led numerous scientific projects and was recognized as a NIST Fellow in 2013.
Nam was elected an Optica Fellow in 2012 for seminal contributions to the development of superconducting single-photon detectors and photon-number-resolving detectors and their use in quantum optics experiments. He was a frequent attendee at Optica’s conferences, such as FiO LS and CLEO, and was a presenting author at the recent 2023 Quantum 2.0 conference in Denver, CO, US.
Nam was a beloved member of the NIST team and will be dearly missed by his Optica colleagues and collaborators.
