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20 November 2014
Robert W. Hellwarth Named Honorary Member of The Optical Society
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Robert W. Hellwarth Named Honorary Member of The Optical Society
Hellwarth recognized for contributions to quantum electronics and nonlinear optics
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2014—The Board of Directors of The Optical Society (OSA) announced today that Robert W. Hellwarth has been elected as the society’s newest Honorary Member. Hellwarth was chosen “for his pioneering introduction of Q-switches to lasers and profoundly influential contributions to the science of nonlinear optics, including stimulated light scattering, origins of nonlinear refractive index, photorefractivity and phase conjugation.” Honorary Membership is OSA’s most distinguished membership status. Hellwarth joins a group of only 46 OSA Honorary Members elected since the society was founded in 1916.“Professor Hellwarth’s wide-ranging contributions have advanced over his 60-year career as the field of optics itself has advanced,” said OSA President Philip Bucksbaum of Stanford University. “He has been a continuing and active presence in nonlinear optics, striding comfortably between electrical engineering and physics. His work represents well the interdisciplinary nature of optics and OSA. We are honored to include Professor Hellwarth among this elite group of distinguished OSA Members.”
Hellwarth received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 1952. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he obtained his Ph.D. in physics in 1955. He spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher working with Richard Feynman at the California Institute of Technology, followed by positions at Hughes Research Laboratories and Caltech from 1956-1970. Since then, he has been a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Physics Departments at the University of Southern California, where he remains today.
Hellwarth's research is focused on understanding and developing materials for nonlinear optical devices. His research is particularly concentrated on polymers, suspensions, and photorefractive crystals, physics of optical glasses (especially acoustic attenuation in glass), nonlinear imaging devices, wavefront reversal, and nonlinear optics for systolic-architecture computers.
His work in nonlinear materials has demonstrated the surprisingly low power thresholds for nonlinear effects that may be expected to be found at microwave and longer wavelengths. Hellwarth made the first observation of the hyperfine resonance absorption of a radioactive isotope. He was co-developer of the widely used "precessing-vector" model of two-level atoms. He witnessed the making of the first laser at the Hughes Research Laboratories in 1960, and became an early and continuing contributor to the new optics spawned by this development.
He is perhaps best known for inventing and demonstrating "Q-switching," a contribution that led to the entire field of high-power lasers. It also led to stimulated Raman scattering, which he was the first to explain. He was co-discoverer of a new kind of laser action, to which he gave its theoretical basis and the name, "stimulated scattering."
At USC, Professor Hellwarth developed a new, and now widely employed, method for reversing the lightwave pattern of an optical image, a process often called "optical beam phase conjugation." He also invented widely used laser-spectroscopic techniques.
Hellwarth joined OSA in 1982 and was named an OSA Fellow in 1987. He is the recipient of several honors, including OSA’s Charles Hard Townes Award, which he won “for his invention of the Q-switched laser, co-discovery of the Raman laser and explanation of stimulated scattering phenomena, and the theory of optical phase conjugation.” He is also a Fellow of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and IEEE.
Honorary membership at OSA is given to those who have made unique, seminal contributions to the field of optics. The number of living Honorary Members cannot exceed two-thousandths (2/1,000) of the total OSA Membership. Election requires the unanimous vote of the Board of Directors. For a complete listing of OSA's honorary members, visit OSA's website.
About OSA
Founded in 1916, The Optical Society (OSA) is the leading professional organization for scientists, engineers, students and entrepreneurs who fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light. Through world-renowned publications, meetings and membership initiatives, OSA provides quality research, inspired interactions and dedicated resources for its extensive global network of optics and photonics experts. OSA is a founding partner of the National Photonics Initiative and the 2015 International Year of Light. For more information, visit www.osa.org.
