James P. Gordon
James Power Gordon ( born March 20, 1928 in New York City; † June 21, 2013 ) was an American physicist who worked on quantum optics.
Biography
Gordon was the son of a corporate lawyer ( at Kraftco ) and attended Exeter Academy. He studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Bachelor 1949) and Columbia University, where in 1951 he took his Master's degree and received his doctorate in 1955 with Charles H. Townes. From 1955 he was up to his retirement in 1996 at Bell Laboratories. 1958 to 1980 he headed the department for research in quantum electronics ( another name for Quantum Optics ), first in Murray Hill and then. Holmdel, New Jersey 1962/63 he was a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Gordon also took part in competitions in Platform Tennis (see paddle tennis ) and won in 1959, the U.S. Championships in men's doubles.
His brother Robert S. Gordon, Jr. (1926-1984) was an epidemiologist who established a cholera clinic in East Pakistan.
Gordon is married to the former computer programmer at Bell labs Susanna Bland Waldner since 1960 and the couple have a son and two daughters.
Scientific Work
Gordon was a student of Charles Townes ( and the post-doctoral Herbert pointer ) 1953/54, involved in the development of the maser He earned his doctorate at Columbia University in order Townes. Later he was at Bell Laboratories. Even after he dealt with the theory of the laser ( the optical version of the maser ), for example in the study of confocal resonators ( with curved mirrors ).
He examined later, the propagation of solitons in optical fibers and interference effects in the propagation of laser pulses in optical fibers ( Gordon-Haus effect with Hermann A. Haus 1986). With LF Mollenauer and RH Stolen he reported a first observation of solitons in optical fibers and he explained the frequency shift of solitons. With Herwig Kogelnik, he developed a theory of polarization mode dispersion ( PMD) in optical fibers.
In the 1980s, he worked with Arthur Ashkin of the theory of atoms in optical traps. He developed the first theory of forces and angular momentum from the radiation interaction in dielectric media. and Ashkin he developed the theory of diffusion of atoms in optical traps.
Gordon looked at already in the 1960s with quantum information theory. In 1962 he examined the impact of quantum mechanics on the capacity of information channels for Claude Shannon in the classical case, a formula had set up. The team fielded by his conjecture on a quantum- mechanical version of the Shannon formula was proved in the 1990s by AS Holevo.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences (1988) and since 1998, IEEE Fellow since 1985. In 2001 he was awarded the Willis E. Lamb Award and Frederic Ives Medal 2002. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow and Honorary Member of the Optical Society of America, the Max Born Award he received in 1991.