Schawlow, Arthur L.

Schawlow, Arthur L. (Leonard) (1921–  ) physicist; born in Mount Vernon, N.Y. He taught and did microwave research in Toronto (1941–49), then went to Columbia University (1949–51). He performed superconductivity research at Bell Telephone Laboratories (1951–61) before joining Stanford (1961). He used his experience in maser technology to lay the basis for the laser with his brother-in-law, C. H. Townes (1958), and shared half the 1981 Nobel Prize in physics (with N. Bloembergen) for their contribution to laser spectroscopy.