In brief
Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist renowned for co-inventing the laser and pioneering laser spectroscopy.
Born in Mount Vernon, New York, to a father who had immigrated from Riga, Latvia, Schawlow grew up partly in Canada and earned his B.A. in physics and mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1941, followed by M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics there after working on radar development during World War II. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University from 1949 to 1951, he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he collaborated with Charles H. Townes on microwave spectroscopy and, in 1958, co-authored the seminal paper proposing the optical maser, now known as the laser.
Arthur Leonard Schawlow was born on May 5, 1921, in Mount Vernon, New York, to a Jewish father from Riga and a Canadian mother.
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