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Nicolaas Bloembergen as a scientist and a mentor

Nature Photonics volume 12, pages 118–121 (2018)Cite this article

Nicolaas Bloembergen made rich contributions to nuclear magnetic resonance, masers and lasers, nonlinear optics and ultrafast laser–matter interactions. The Nobel laureate sadly passed away on 5 September 2017. Here are my memories of my Harvard mentor, a remarkable person and a wonderful scientist.

Bloembergen was born on 11 March 1920 in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, and he passed away on 5 September 2017 in Tucson, Arizona. He first entered the University of Utrecht as a student of physics in the fall of 1938. Studying under the repressive conditions of the German occupation in Holland, he completed his B.S. degree in 1941 and his M.S. degree in April 1943, just a few weeks before the Nazis closed the university. He left Holland in January 1946 and arrived at Harvard University in February that same year as Edward Purcell’s first graduate student. He defended his thesis at Leiden University and received his PhD degree in May 1948. After coming back to Harvard in January 1949 as a Harvard Junior Fellow, he stayed and became a professor and in 1980 he succeeded Purcell as Gerhard Gade University Professor. His accomplishments were recognized by numerous national and international honours, including the National Medal of Science in 1974 and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981. In my recollection, Bloembergen never spoke of his many honours; the framed certificate of the National Medal of Science that hung on his office wall was the only indication of his illustrious awards. Only on our request at a group lunch did he show us the certificate and a gold-plated replica of the gold medal for his Nobel Prize.

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  1. Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jia-Ming Liu

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Liu, JM. Nicolaas Bloembergen as a scientist and a mentor. Nature Photon 12, 118–121 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-018-0116-5

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