Charles Townes - Definition and Overview

Charles Hard Townes (born July 28, 1915) is an American physicist and educator. Townes is known for his work on the theory and application of the maser, on which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics connected with both maser and laser devices.

He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with N. G. Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov for contributions to this field, and in 1998 he was awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society.

He received his bachelor's degrees in physics and modern languages from Furman University in 1935, and his Ph.D. in physics from Caltech in 1939. With Arthur Leonard Schawlow, he wrote the book Microwave Spectroscopy, published in 1955.

External link

• Charles Hard Townes (http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/charles_hard_townes.html)
• Infrared Spatial Interferometer Array (http://isi.ssl.berkeley.edu/)
• Research page (http://physics.berkeley.edu/research/faculty/Townes.html)