Bloembergen, Nicolaas (1920– )

Dutch-born US physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1981 for his work on laser spectroscopy. He used the laser as a tool to excite or break chemical bonds during the study of chemical reactions. He shared the Nobel prize with Arthur Schawlow and Kai Siegbahn.

In the mid 1950s Bloembergen developed a type of maser, called the three-level or multi-level maser, that could produce a continuous output of microwave radiation – earlier masers could only work intermittently. Bloembergen has also worked on non-linear optics, studying the effects produced by high-intensity radiation.

Bloembergen was born in Dordrecht, Netherlands, and educated at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden, where he gained his doctorate in 1948. He emigrated to the USA soon after and joined Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1949. He was appointed Gordon McKay professor of applied physics in 1957, Rumford professor of physics in 1974, and Gerhard Gade university professor in 1980.