Roy J. Glauber

Facts

Roy J. Glauber

Photo: J.Reed

Roy J. Glauber
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2005

Born: 1 September 1925, New York, NY, USA

Died: 26 December 2018, Newton, MA, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: “for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence”

Prize share: 1/2

Work

According to quantum physics, which was developed at the beginning of the 20th century, light and other electromagnetic radiation appear in the form of quanta, packets with fixed energies, which can be described as both waves and as particles, photons. However, no real in-depth theory of light based on quantum theory existed before Roy Glauber established the foundation for quantum optics in 1963. This required the development of the laser. Its concentrated and coherent light gave rise to more quantum physical phenomena than regular light.

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