Raymond Chiao
Raymond Y. Chiao | |
|---|---|
| [[File:|80px|upright=1]] | |
| Born | October 9, 1940 [Hong Kong] |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | MIT Princeton University |
| Known for | Measuring the Tunneling Time, Observation of Berry's Topological Phase |
| Awards | Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics (2006) Einstein Prize for Laser Science (1993) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | UC Merced Berkeley MIT |
| Doctoral advisor | Charles Hard Townes |
| Doctoral students | Paul Kwiat Aephraim Steinberg |
Raymond Y. Chiao is an American physicist best known for his experimental work in quantum optics. He is currently on the faculty of the University of California, Merced, where he is conducting research on gravitational radiation.
Biography
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 Archibald 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 Charles Hard Townes, shortly after the experimental realization of the ruby laser. His thesis topic was on the first observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering.
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 2006, after which he took a position at the UC's newly opened campus UC Merced.
Discoveries
Chiao has become well known in the field of quantum optics due to several important experiments. He was first to measure the quantum tunnelling time, which was found to be between 1.5 to 1.7 times the speed of light. He also was the first to measure the topological Berry's Phase (Geometric phase) .
Current Work
In a sense, Chiao never stopped working on the project his undergraduate thesis adviser John Archibald Wheeler gave him, of quantizing gravity. As of 2006, he accepted a faculty position at UC Merced and turned his full energy on the project of detecting gravitational waves through the use of superconductors.
References and External Links
- Tunnelling Time
- http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/TunnelingTime.html
- http://www.aei.mpg.de/~mpoessel/Physik/FTL/tunnelingftl.html
Various
- http://www.lambmedal.org/2006/2006-chiao.html
- http://www.ucmerced.edu/news_articles/12142005_renowned_berkeley_physicist_raymond.asp
Books
Quantum Optics By John Garrison, Raymond Chiao
Amazing Light By Raymond Chiao
Publications
A.M. Steinberg and R. Y. Chiao Tunneling delay times in one and two dimensions Phys. Rev. A 49, 3283 - 3295 (1994) http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v49/i5/p3283_1
A. Tomita and R.Y. Chiao Observation of Berry's Topological Phase by Use of an Optical Fiber Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 937 - 940 (1986) http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v57/i8/p937_1
Media Coverage
http://edition.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/07/20/speed.of.light.ap/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE0D8123BF935A15750C0A9649C8B63
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE0D8123BF935A15750C0A9649C8B63
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/examiner/article.cgi?year=1997&month=08&day=11&article=NEWS378.dtl