At dawn on October 29, 1964, reporters flocked to the home of Stanford physicist Arthur Schawlow on a tip that he was about to win a Nobel Prize. But the call from Sweden didn't come. Instead, the prize went to his former research partner, Charles Townes, and two Soviet physicists. Seventeen years would pass before Schawlow won a physics Nobel for his pioneering work with lasers.
Schawlow, an emeritus professor who had chaired the physics department in the 1960s, died April 28 in Palo Alto. He was 77.
Born near New York City, Schawlow moved to Canada at an early age. He won a scholarship to the University of Toronto and, fascinated by optical physics, stayed on to earn his PhD in 1949. On a fellowship at Columbia, he worked with Townes, who had invented a microwave-emitting device called the maser. Together they hoped to design a light-emitting version, or laser. Schawlow's stay at Columbia was cut short in 1951, however, when he married Townes's sister, Aurelia. Forced to leave by anti-nepotism policies, Schawlow went to work at Bell Labs in New Jersey.
On weekends, he and Townes kept up their laser efforts. Schawlow suggested building a long chamber with a mirror at the end -- an idea that led to their 1958 paper setting forth the first written description of a laser. Their work spawned a $3.5 billion industry, but since Bell employees had to surrender patent rights, Schawlow never profited from it.
In 1961, he came to Stanford, where he taught, continued his research and recruited an impressive cadre of faculty. Steven Chu, who won the Nobel in 1997 for using lasers to cool atoms, was one of those recruits. "[Schawlow] had started a very deep tradition of excellence in the field," Chu says. "He made me feel like I could continue this tradition."
Nicknamed "Laser Man," Schawlow was often spotted riding his moped around campus or listening to jazz records in his office. Twice a month he drove to the Sierra foothills to visit his son, Artie, in a nonprofit home for autistic adults, which Schawlow founded with his Nobel money. Aurelia died in 1991 in a car crash on the way to the facility.
Schawlow is survived by Artie; his two daughters, Helen Johnson, '79, PhD '87, and Edith Dwan, '81; and five grandchildren.
