Capasso and Cho Win Lamb Award

MURRAY HILL, N. J. (Jan. 24, 2000) - World-renowned scientists Federico Capasso and Alfred Y. Cho have been awarded the Willis E. Lamb Medal for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, in recognition of their "pioneering contributions to the quantum electronics of quantum well structures and the invention of the quantum cascade laser."

Alfred Y. Cho

Both direct research in semiconductor physics at Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies. They received the award at the 30th Winter Colloquium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics recently in Snowbird, Utah.

Cho is best known for the invention of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a technique that makes it possible to create new materials one atomic layer at a time; Capasso, for his pioneering research on the design of artificially structured semiconductor materials and devices and for his role in the invention of the quantum cascade (QC) laser, a fundamentally new type of laser that operates like an electronic waterfall.

QC lasers have potentially wide-ranging uses in non-invasive, real-time chemical sensing applications, such as environmental monitoring, industrial process control, combustion and medical diagnostics, atmospheric chemistry and planetary science. A QC laser recently used by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA, flying at 70,000 feet in the stratosphere, detected minute amounts (parts per billion in volume) of nitrous oxide and methane. The QC laser was first demonstrated in 1994 by a research team including Capasso, Cho, Jerome Faist, Deborah Sivco, Carlo Sirtori and Albert Hutchinson.

Capasso and Cho have collaborated for 15 years on the design and fabrication of innovative quantum structures for photonics and electronics.

"Al Cho and Federico Capasso are luminaries in semiconductor science and the technology behind 'designer materials' and quantum devices," said Bell Labs Research Vice President Bill Brinkman. "They have given the world semiconductor structures that could not be fabricated using naturally existing materials and a whole new class of lasers. Both are internationally recognized for their enormous scientific contributions."

Most of the semiconductor lasers used in today's compact disc players are manufactured using MBE material. The impact of MBE on fundamental science has been at least as dramatic as its impact on semiconductor technology; all major universities throughout the world now have MBE systems.

Capasso's basic and applied research on bandstructure engineering of atomically structured semiconductor materials and devices has opened up new areas of investigation in semiconductor science, laser physics, nonlinear optics, electronics and photonics.

Cho holds B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois. He joined Bell Labs in 1968. Capasso received the doctor of Physics degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Rome, Italy, in 1973. He joined Bell Labs as a visiting scientist in 1976 and then as member of technical staff in 1977.

Both scientists are members of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. They are also Fellows of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Both are Bell Labs Fellows and have received numerous awards.

Cho was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for scientific achievement, for inventing and developing MBE. He also received the American Physical Society International Prize for New Materials in 1982, the Solid State Science and Technology Medal of the Electrochemical Society in 1987, the World Materials Congress Award of ASM International in 1988, the Gaede-Langmuir Award of the American Vacuum Society in 1988, the Industrial Research Institute Achievement Award of the Industrial Research Institute, Inc., in 1988, the New Jersey Governor's Thomas Alva Edison Science Award in 1990, and the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1994.

He received the 1990 International Crystal Growth Award of the American Association for Crystal Growth, the 1994 Von Hippel Award of the Materials Research Society, the 1995 Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute, and the 1995 Computers & Communications Prize of the C&C Foundation

Capasso received the 1998 Rank Prize in Optoelectronics, the 1998 IEEE W. Streifer Award of the Laser and Electrooptics Society, the 1997 John Price Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute, the 1997 Capitolium Prize, the 1997 Industry Week Technology and Innovation Award, the 1995 Materials Research Society Medal, the 1995 Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 1995 LMVH "Vinci of Excellence" Prize, the 1994 Heinrich Welker Memorial Medal from Siemens, the 1994 Popular Science Award for Science and Technology, the 1993 New York Academy of Sciences Award, the 1991 IEEE David Sarnoff Award in Electronics, the 1984 Bell Laboratories Distinguished Member of Technical Staff Award and the 1984 Award of Excellence of the Society for Technical Communications. Capasso is also a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, the SPIE and the Institute of Physics in London.

The Willis Lamb Medal, named after the 1955 Nobel Laureate and quantum physics pioneer, is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of quantum optics and laser science. Past winners include former Bell Labs scientist Ali Javan, for the invention of the helium-neon laser; Melvin Lax, Bell Labs consultant and former department head, for his fundamental work on the quantum theory of the laser; and Herbert Walther, of the Max Planck Institute in Quantum Optics, in Germany, for his work on single-atom masers.

This information is based on a press release written by Donna Cunningham of Bell Labs Media Relations.

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