Gabor, Dennis (1900-1979)

Hungarian-born British physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1971 for his invention in 1947 of the holographic method of three-dimensional photography.

Born in Budapest, Gabor studied at the Budapest Technical University and then at the Technishe Hochschule in Berlin. He worked in Germany until he fled to Britain in 1933 to escape the Nazis. From 1958 to 1967 he was professor of applied electron physics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London.

When Gabor began work on holography, he considered the possibility of improving the resolving power of the electron microscope, first by using the electron beam to make a hologram of the object and then by examining this hologram with a beam of coherent light. But coherent light of sufficient intensity was not achievable until the laser was demonstrated in 1960.

Other work included research on high-speed oscilloscopes, communication theory, and physical optics. In 1958 he invented a type of colour television tube of greatly reduced depth. He took out more than 100 patents for his inventions.