Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-2017)

Awarded the Prize “for his contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy.”

American physicist. Bloembergen was born in Dordrecht, the Netherls on March 11, 1920. He graduated from the University of Utrecht received B.Sc. ’s degree there. In 1948, he obtained his doctorate from Leiden University. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1958. He was Professor of applied physics at Harvard University from 1951 until 1990. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, the Netherls Royal Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, among others. He received the National Medal of Science from the President of the United States in 1974, the Lorentz Medal of the Dutch Academy of Sciences in 1979. He also received the Frederic Ives Medal of Optical Society of America in 1979 Medal of Honor of the IEEE in 1983. Bloembergen died on September 5, 2017 in Tucson, Arizona, USA.