The R. W. Wood Prize is an award endowed by

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

and given by The

Optical Society Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...

to an individual that makes an outstanding technical contribution or an invention in the field of

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

. The award was established in 1975 in commemoration of

Robert W. Wood Robert Williams Wood (May 2, 1868 – August 11, 1955) was an American physicist and inventor who made pivotal contributions to the field of optics. He pioneered infrared and ultraviolet photography. Wood's patents and theoretical work inform ...

. Past winners of the award include Margaret Murnane,

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, an ...

Carl Wieman Carl Edwin Wieman (born March 26, 1951) is an American physicist and educationist at Stanford University, and currently the A.D White Professor at Large at Cornell University. In 1995, while at the University of Colorado Boulder, he and Eric All ...

Gérard Mourou Gérard Albert Mourou (; born 22 June 1944) is a French scientist and pioneer in the field of electrical engineering and lasers. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, along with Donna Strickland, for the invention of chirped pulse a ...

, and

Theodore H. Maiman Theodore Harold Maiman (July 11, 1927 – May 5, 2007) was an American engineer and physicist who is widely credited with the invention of the laser.Johnson, John Jr. (May 11, 2008). "Theodore H. Maiman, at age 32; scientist created the first LA ...

Recipients

* 2022 -

Shanhui Fan Shanhui Fan (; born 1972) is a Chinese-born American electrical engineer and physicist, with a focus on theoretical, computational and numerical aspects of photonics and electromagnetism. He is a professor of electrical engineering, and a profes ...

* 2021 - Tobias Kippenberg * 2020 - John Michael Dudley * 2019 - Jian-Wei Pan * 2018 - * 2017 -

Michal Lipson Michal Lipson (born 1970) is an American physicist known for her work on silicon photonics. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2019, Lipson was named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow for contributions to silicon photonics especially towa ...

* 2016 - * 2015 - Peter J. Nordlander * 2015 - Naomi Halas * 2014 - * 2013 -

Milton Feng Milton Feng co-created the first transistor laser, working with Nick Holonyak in 2004. The paper discussing their work was voted in 2006 as one of the five most important papers published by the American Institute of Physics since its founding 75 ye ...

* 2012 -

Eric Van Stryland Eric Van Stryland was president of the Optical Society of America in 2005. Eric Van Stryland received the Physics PhD degree in 1976, from the University of Arizona, Optical Sciences Center, Tucson, Arizona, where he worked on optical coherent t ...

* 2012 - * 2011 - * 2010 - * 2010 - Margaret Murnane * 2009 - Paul G. Kwiat * 2008 - Andrew M. Weiner * 2008 - * 2007 - Bahram Jalali * 2006 -

Alexander Efros Alexander Lwowitsch Efros (russian: Александр Львович Эфрос) is a Russian physicist. Efros is co-discoverer, along with Louis Brus and Alexey Ekimov, of semiconducting nanocrystals known as quantum dots. Efros graduated ...

* 2006 - Aleksey Ekimov * 2006 -

Louis E. Brus Louis E. Brus is the S. L. Mitchell Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. He is the discoverer of the colloidal semi-conductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots. Brus received the Franklin Institute's 2012 Bower Award and Prize for Achi ...

* 2005 - * 2004 - Rangaswamy Srinivasan * 2004 -

James J. Wynne James J. Wynne (born March 19, 1943, in Brooklyn) is an American physicist at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. Wynne pioneered the use of excimer lasers for medical applications, most notably LASIK. He received the Nati ...

* 2004 - Samuel E. Blum * 2003 - * 2002 - * 2001 -

Federico Capasso Federico Capasso (born 1949, Rome, Italy), a prominent applied physicist, was one of the inventors of the quantum cascade laser during his work at Bell Laboratories. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard University. He has co-authored over ...

* 2000 -

* 2000 - * 2000 - * 1999 - Eric A. Cornell * 1999 -

* 1998 - Robert L. Byer * 1998 - * 1997 - * 1996 -

Eli Yablonovitch Eli Yablonovitch (born 15 December 1946) is an American physicist and engineer who, along with Sajeev John founded the field of photonic crystals in 1987.M.Kapoor (2013Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures page 58 He and his team were the first t ...

* 1995 -

* 1994 - * 1993 - * 1993 - LeGrand Van Uitert * 1992 - Yuri N. Denisyuk * 1991 - * 1991 - Richard M. Osgood * 1991 - * 1990 - * 1989 - * 1988 - * 1988 - David A. B. Miller * 1987 -

David E. Aspnes David Erik Aspnes (born 1 May 1939 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1998). Aspnes developed fundamental theories of the linear and nonlinear optical properties of materials and th ...

* 1986 - * 1986 - * 1985 - David H. Auston * 1984 -

Otto Wichterle Otto Wichterle (; 27 October 1913 – 18 August 1998) was a Czech chemist, best known for his invention of modern soft contact lenses. Wichterle is the author or co-author of approximately 180 patents and over 200 publications. The studies ...

* 1983 - * 1982 - Linn F. Mollenauer * 1981 - Charles V. Shank * 1981 - Erich P. Ippen * 1980 - Anthony E. Siegman * 1979 - Peter Franken * 1978 - Peter P. Sorokin * 1977 - Peter Fellgett * 1976 -

* 1975 - Emmett N. Leith * 1975 -

Juris Upatnieks Juris Upatnieks (born 7 May 1936 in Riga) is a Latvian-American physicist and inventor, and pioneer in the field of holography. Upatnieks fled the Latvia with his parents at the close of World War II, seeking asylum in Germany. In 1951 the famil ...

References

{{reflist Awards of Optica (society)

Recipients

See also

References