Chu, Steven (1948– )

US physicist. He made major contributions to laser spectroscopy, analysis of positronium atoms, and studies of gaseous sodium at temperatures approaching absolute zero. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997 for the discovery of a way to slow down individual atoms using lasers for study in a near-vacuum.

He was born in St Louis, Missouri. He was a member of the technical staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories 1976–78, and head of the quantum electronics and research department of American Telephone and Telegraph Co. Bell Laboratories 1983–87, before becoming a physics professor at Stanford in 1987.