Peter Franken

Peter Franken (* November 10, 1928, † 11 March 1999 in Tucson ) was an American physicist who dealt with nonlinear optics and atomic physics.

Francs in 1952 received his doctorate at Columbia University and was then as a post-doctoral fellow for two years at Stanford University. From 1956 he was at the University of Michigan, where he became a professor. In 1973 he went to the University of Arizona as a director of the Optical Sciences Center.

In 1961 he demonstrated with colleagues first frequency doubling (SHG, second harmonic generation ), which he afterwards frequently anwandte. In the 1960s, he was with Colgrave, Richard ( Dick) Sands and Robert Lewis, a pioneer of Level Crossing Spectroscopy.

In 1977 he was president of the Optical Society of America, the RW Wood Prize he received in 1979. In 1970, he spent several years as director of ARPA ( Advanced Research Projects Agency ) in Washington, DC.