Nicolaas Bloembergen
Who was Nicolaas Bloembergen?
Dutch-born American physicist
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Nicolaas Bloembergen (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Nicolaas Bloembergen was born on March 11, 1920, in Dordrecht, Netherlands, and became a key figure in the physics of light-matter interaction in the twentieth century. He started his education at Utrecht University and Leiden University before moving to the United States for graduate studies at Harvard University. At Harvard, he joined Edward Purcell's lab and made important contributions to nuclear magnetic relaxation theory, which influenced the development of NMR spectroscopy and his later research on how intense electromagnetic fields interact with matter. Bloembergen spent most of his career at Harvard, eventually becoming the Gerhard Gade University Professor.
Bloembergen's most notable work was in nonlinear optics, a field he is credited with establishing. When lasers became available in the early 1960s, he realized that beams of intense, coherent light could be combined in certain materials to create new frequencies of light. This breakthrough enabled laser spectroscopy to explore a much wider range of frequencies, allowing scientists to study atoms and molecules more precisely. His 1965 book, Nonlinear Optics, became a key text in the field, laying the groundwork for future researchers.
In 1981, Bloembergen shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Arthur Schawlow and Kai Siegbahn. Bloembergen and Schawlow were recognized for their work on laser spectroscopy, while Siegbahn was honored separately for electron spectroscopy. The Nobel Committee highlighted Bloembergen's role in founding nonlinear optics by showing how mixing laser beams in a suitable medium could create light of different wavelengths, significantly enhancing optical techniques.
Besides his work at Harvard, Bloembergen was a visiting professor at Leiden University in 1973 as Lorentz Professor and later joined the University of Arizona's faculty, continuing his research until late in his life. His many awards included the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize in 1958, the Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1961, the National Medal of Science in 1974, the Lorentz Medal in 1978, the Frederic Ives Medal in 1979, the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1983, the Dirac Medal in 1983, along with a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Humboldt Research Fellowship. He was married to Huberta Deliana Brink. Nicolaas Bloembergen died on September 5, 2017, in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of ninety-seven.
Before Fame
Bloembergen grew up in the Netherlands during the time between the two World Wars, when European physics was being transformed by new ideas in quantum mechanics and the understanding of atomic structure. He studied at Utrecht University before moving to Leiden University, one of the oldest and most respected physics centers in Europe, where important figures like Hendrik Lorentz and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes had influenced modern physics. His academic life was heavily disrupted during World War II due to the German occupation, and he reportedly had to survive on very limited food during the final years of the war, which interrupted his studies.
After the Netherlands was liberated, Bloembergen went to the United States in 1945 and began doctoral research at Harvard University. There, he worked with Edward Purcell, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952 for discovering nuclear magnetic resonance. Bloembergen provided important theoretical insights into how nuclear spins exchange energy with their surrounding lattice. His doctoral thesis on nuclear magnetic relaxation earned him a PhD from Harvard and established his reputation as an exceptionally talented theorist, paving the way for his later work on how electromagnetic radiation interacts with condensed matter.
Key Achievements
- Founded the field of nonlinear optics, demonstrating how intense laser beams mixed in optical media can generate new wavelengths of light
- Shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to the development of laser spectroscopy
- Made foundational theoretical contributions to nuclear magnetic relaxation in his doctoral work at Harvard
- Authored the landmark 1965 text Nonlinear Optics, which defined the theoretical basis of the discipline for decades
- Received the National Medal of Science in 1974 and the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1983, among more than a dozen major international awards
Did You Know?
- 01.Bloembergen survived the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944–1945, known as the Hongerwinter, subsisting on severely limited food supplies during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands before emigrating to the United States.
- 02.His 1965 monograph Nonlinear Optics, based on lecture notes from a Gordon Research Conference, became so foundational to the field that it remained a standard reference for researchers decades after its publication.
- 03.Bloembergen held the prestigious Lorentz Professorship at Leiden University in 1973, a named chair honoring Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, the Dutch physicist who had pioneered classical electromagnetic theory at the same institution.
- 04.He continued active academic work at the University of Arizona well into his eighties, making him one of the longest-practicing Nobel laureates in experimental physics.
- 05.Bloembergen's early NMR research was conducted in the same Harvard laboratory as Edward Purcell, meaning his graduate training placed him at the very origin point of a technique that would later revolutionize both chemistry and medical imaging.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Nobel Prize in Physics | 1981 | for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy |
| Guggenheim Fellowship | — | — |
| Frederic Ives Medal | 1979 | — |
| Stuart Ballantine Medal | 1961 | — |
| Lorentz Medal | 1978 | — |
| Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize | 1958 | — |
| IEEE Medal of Honor | 1983 | — |
| National Medal of Science | 1974 | — |
| Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Physics | 1983 | — |
| Humboldt Research Fellowship | — | — |
| IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award | 1959 | — |
| Fellow of the American Physical Society | — | — |
| honorary doctorate at the Laval University | 1987 | — |
| Humboldt Prize | — | — |
| Fellow of the Optical Society | — | — |
| Bijvoet Medal | 2001 | — |
Nobel Prizes
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