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Raymond Chiao

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Raymond Y. Chiao
Born (1940-10-09) October 9, 1940 (age 84)
[Hong Kong]
NationalityUnited States
Alma materMIT
Princeton
Known forMeasuring the Tunneling Time, Observation of Berry's Topological Phase
AwardsWillis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics (2006)
Einstein Prize for Laser Science (1993)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsBerkeley
MIT
Doctoral advisorCharles Hard Townes
Doctoral studentsPaul Kwiat

Raymond Chiao was born in Hong Kong on Oct. 9, 1940, and moved as a child to the United States in 1947. He grew up in New York City, where he attended Collegiate School. It was there that he first got interested in science through reading Gamow’s book One, Two, Three, ..., Infinity.

He was admitted to Princeton University in 1957 as an electrical engineer, but then switched to the physics department, where he worked unsuccessfully with John Wheeler on a senior thesis project on the quantization of general relativity. He then switched from theoretical physics to experimental physics in graduate studies at MIT under the supervision of C. H. Townes, shortly after the experimental realization of the ruby laser. His thesis topic was on the first observation of the stimulated Brillouin effect.

After obtaining his Ph. D. in 1965 from MIT, he taught as an assistant professor there until 1967. He moved to UC Berkeley in 1967, and remained there until recently.