Aleksander Jabłoński (born 26 February 1898 in Woskresenówka, in

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

; died 9 September 1980 in Skierniewice,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

) was a Polish physicist and member of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

. His research was in molecular spectroscopy and photophysics.

Life and career

He was born on 26 February 1898 in Woskresenówka near

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

in Imperial Russia. He attended ''Gymnasium'' high school in Kharkiv as well as a music school where he learned to play the violin under supervision of Konstanty Gorski. In 1916, he started to study physics at the University of Kharkiv. During the

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he served in the Polish I Corps in Russia. After the war he settled in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

in 1918. In 1919–1920 he fought for

against aggression by Soviet Russia (and was consequently decorated with the Polish Cross of Valour). Jabłoński initially studied the violin at Warsaw Conservatory, under the virtuoso Stanisław Barcewicz, but later switched to science. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw in 1930, writing a thesis ''On the influence of the change of the wavelength of excitation light on the fluorescence spectra''. He then went to Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

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for two years (1930–31) as a fellow of the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

. He worked with Peter Pringsheim at the FWU and later with Otto Stern in Hamburg. In 1934 Jabłoński returned to Poland to receive habilitation from the University of Warsaw. His thesis was ''On the influence of intermolecular interactions on the absorption and emission of light'', the subject to which he would devote the rest of his life. He served as president of the Polish Physical Society between 1957 and 1961. Jabłoński was a pioneer of molecular photophysics, creating the concept of the "luminescent centre" and his own theories of concentrational quenching and

depolarization In biology, depolarization or hypopolarization is a change within a cell (biology), cell, during which the cell undergoes a shift in electric charge distribution, resulting in less negative charge inside the cell compared to the outside. Depolar ...

of photoluminescence. He also worked on pressure broadening of emission spectra lines and was the first to recognize the analogy between pressure broadening and molecular spectra. This led to development of the quantum-mechanical pressure broadening theory. Fluorescence is illustrated schematically with the classical Jablonski diagram, first proposed by Jabłoński in 1933 to describe absorption and emission of light. In 1946, he settled in

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

where he was appointed Head of the Faculty of Physics at the Nicolaus Copernicus University.

Awards and honours

* Cross of Valour (1920) *Fellow of the

(1930–31) *Golden Cross of Merit (1951) * Marian Smoluchowski Medal (1968) * Honorary degree of the University of Windsor (1973) *Honorary degree of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (1973) *Honorary degree of the University of Gdańsk (1975)

References

Complete list of papers published by Professor Aleksander Jablonski

Aleksander Jabłoński fulltext articles in Kujawsko-Pomorska Digital Library

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jablonski, Aleksander 1898 births 1980 deaths University of Warsaw alumni Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Academic staff of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń 20th-century Polish physicists Spectroscopists