Ali Javan (Persian: علی جوان – ‘Ali Javān, Azerbaijani: ) is an Iranian American physicist and inventor at MIT. His main contributions to science have been in the fields of quantum physics and spectroscopy. He co-invented the gas laser in 1960, with William R. Bennett. In 2007 Javan was ranked Number 12 on the list of the “Top 100 Living Geniuses”.
| Known for | Gas laser |
|---|---|
| Notable awards | Albert Einstein World Award of Science (1993) |
Ali Javan was born in Tehran to Iranian Azerbaijani parents from Tabriz.[3] He graduated from Alborz High School, started his university studies at University of Tehran and came to the United States in 1948 right after the war.
Honors
- Member of Sigma Xi
- National Academy of Sciences Fellow
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
- 1964 – Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute for “conception and development of the first continuous optical laser which utilised Neon and Helium“
- 1966 – Fanny and John Hertz Foundation Medal
- 1966 – Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
- 1975 – Frederic Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America
- 1979 – Humboldt Foundation Fellowship
- 1993 – Albert Einstein World Award of Science of the World Cultural Council [18]
- 2006 – Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame
- 2011 – SPIE Fellow
Remarkable people with Iranian roots 