Elias Burstein facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Elias Burstein
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| Born | September 30, 1917 Brooklyn, New York
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| Died | June 17, 2017 (aged 99) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn College University of Kansas |
| Known for | research in optical physics of solids |
| Awards | John Price Wetherill Medal(1979) Frank Isakson Prize(1986) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Condensed-matter physics |
| Institutions | U.S. Naval Research Laboratory University of Pennsylvania |
| Doctoral students | Aron Pinczuk Phillip J. Stiles |
Elias Burstein was an American physicist who had a long and important career. He lived from 1917 to 2017. He was famous for his early work on how light behaves in solid materials. He also wrote and edited many scientific papers. Elias Burstein helped bring scientists together from all over the world. He also taught and guided many younger physicists.
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Education and Early Career
Elias Burstein studied chemistry at Brooklyn College and the University of Kansas. He also took advanced classes in physics at other universities. His studies were stopped in 1945 because of World War II. He went to work at the United States Naval Research Laboratory. Even though he didn't earn a PhD degree, he received four special honorary doctorates later in his life.
Working as a Professor
In 1958, Burstein became a Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He later took over a special teaching position from a Nobel Laureate (a scientist who won a Nobel Prize). He officially retired in 1988. However, he continued to be active as a professor emeritus, meaning he kept working and contributing.
He also taught as a visiting professor at many universities around the world. These included places like the University of California, Irvine, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and the University of Parma in Italy.
Burstein was also part of important science committees. He helped guide research in solid state science for the National Academy of Sciences.
Key Achievements
During his career, Elias Burstein taught over 35 students who went on to earn their PhDs in physics. He also mentored five postdoctoral researchers. He published more than 200 scientific papers. He even held two patents for special light detectors made from silicon and germanium. These detectors were treated with impurities, a process called doping, to make them work better.
He was also very good at organizing international conferences. These events allowed physicists from different countries to share their research and ideas.
Burstein was the first editor of a science journal called Solid State Communications. He helped set up how the journal would work. He made sure that editors could decide whether to publish articles. He also co-edited other important science books and journals.
He helped start a special research lab at the University of Pennsylvania in 1961. This lab, called the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM), focused on basic research about materials.
Scientific Discoveries
Burstein's scientific work greatly improved our understanding of how light interacts with solid materials.
- Early Work: At the United States Naval Research Laboratory, he studied how different crystals reacted to infrared light. He explained how these materials absorb infrared light.
- Light Detectors: His research helped create better impurity-doped silicon and germanium infrared detectors. These detectors are used to sense infrared light.
- The Burstein Shift: He explained a special effect called the "Burstein shift." This shift describes how the way a material absorbs light can change. It happens because of how electrons are arranged in the material.
- Lasers and Light Scattering: At the University of Pennsylvania, Burstein was one of the first to use lasers for basic research. He studied how light changes when it hits a material, a process called Raman scattering. His work helped explain how this scattering happens.
- Surface Effects: He also studied how electric fields on the surface of materials can affect light. This helped scientists understand how light interacts with surfaces.
- "Buckyballs": Later in his career, Burstein and his team made an exciting discovery. They found that special carbon molecules called fullerenes (also known as "buckyballs") could glow in new ways when placed near a smooth metal surface. This discovery helped explain new ways for molecules to give off light.
Selected Publications
Elias Burstein edited several important books and conference proceedings, including:
- “Tunneling Phenomena in Solids” (1969)
- “Atomic Structure and Properties of Solids” (1972)
- Proceedings of Conference on “Polaritons” (1974)
- Inelastic Light Scattering: Proceedings of the 1979 US-Japan Seminar (1980)
- "Confined Electrons and Photons: New Physics and Applications" (1995)
Honors and Awards
Burstein received many awards and honors for his work:
- He won a gold medal from Brooklyn College in 1938 for his excellent chemistry studies.
- The Washington Academy of Sciences gave him an award in 1957 for his work on semiconductors.
- He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. This was for his important contributions to physics.
- He received the John Price Wetherill Medal in 1979 for his work on the optical properties of solids.
- He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980.
- The American Physical Society gave him the Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids in 1986. This was for his pioneering work on how light interacts with materials.
- He received honorary doctorates from several universities, including Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Brooklyn College, Emory University, and Ohio State University.
- He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Personal Life
Elias Burstein was born on September 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Samuel and Sara, were from Russia. He married Rena Ruth Benson in 1943. They had three daughters: Joanna, Sandra, and Miriam. He also had two grandchildren.
Elias Burstein passed away on June 17, 2017, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, at the age of 99.
