On Oct. 4, 2005, John L. (Jan) Hall of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder and Theodor W. Hänsch of the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, were named winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing the honor with Roy J. Glauber of Harvard University.

Hall, 71, is a scientist emeritus in the NIST Quantum Physics Division and a fellow of JILA, a joint research institution of NIST and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo. He was one of the founding fellows of JILA (created in 1962 as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics), and he significantly contributed to the development of the laser, first demonstrated in 1961, from a laboratory curiosity to one of the fundamental tools of modern science and a ubiquitous component of modern communications systems.

© 2005 Geoffrey Wheeler This image may be used for any NIST purpose. Correct photo credit must be provided.

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