Stanford University - Applied Physics

ABOUT OVERVIEW Applied Physics is a graduate department in the School of Humanities and Sciences. It is one of three elements—Applied Physics, Physics, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory—in the broader physics community at Stanford. Over the past 50 years at Stanford, our department has acted nimbly and evolved rapidly to combine diverse approaches at the boundaries of physics, engineering and biology, to both create and leverage new research opportunities. We seek out and develop new areas of physics with broad impact on science, engineering and society through research and education. We believe that the key to our success as a department, both in the past and going forward, lies in strongly encouraging intellectual agility and interdisciplinarity through the creative mixing of ideas from the physical sciences, engineering, and biological sciences. Indeed, many of the ideas and inventions to emerge from the department have made revolutionary contributions to telecommunications, biotechnology, and to our abilities to visualize microscopic matter, explore the cosmos and test fundamental physical principles. It is difficult to categorize the scope of research in AP - beyond Edward Purcell’s definition of “widely applied physics” - it is as much an approach and a process as it is a set of goals. While the department is relatively small, it has nine National Academy of Science and four National Academy of Engineering members in addition to one MacArthur Foundation Fellow and several Packard Foundation Fellows. Moreover, in the past ten years, three members of the department served as the president of the American Physical Society, four have served as president of the Optical Society of America, and one as president of the Biophysical Society. Of the 27 “prolific inventors” identified among our ~2000 faculty members by Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing in 2004, 5 were affiliated with Applied Physics. Our department has also provided significant on-campus leadership; many of our members have served as Associate Deans, Deans of HS, and Deans of Research. OUR HISTORY Applied Physics began as the Division of Applied Physics in 1962 in response to a recognition of the expanding boundaries of physics as applied to particle accelerators, condensed matter, and devices. Early motivation for the division’s mission came from the desire of the particle physics community to develop new accelerator designs. In response, the Physics Department started the Microwave Laboratory in the 1940’s. Working in the Microwave Laboratory, Edward Ginzton and Marvin Chodorow developed the world's first high-power klystrons, and in a project led by William Hansen, this technology lead to the first electron linear accelerator and, eventually, to SLAC. Indeed, Ginzton later wrote the proposal and first budget for SLAC. Recognizing the need for an applied physics faculty to pursue work in this laboratory (and others to come), they helped start the Division of Applied Physics. Chodorow led the movement to create a separate department in 1968. Meanwhile, the Microwave Laboratory became the first independent laboratory (independent of both the Physics and Applied Physics departments) before splitting into the Ginzton and Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratories. These successful independent labs became the model for several others at Stanford. They include School of Humanities and Sciences faculty beyond the Applied Physics and Physics departments as well as include faculty from other Schools at Stanford, especially the School of Engineering. Applied Physics faculty continue to populate and play leadership roles in these labs. Early leadership of the Department of Applied Physics was provided by Chodorow, and Hu Heffner. Soon, interests in laser physics, condensed matter, and astrophysics spurred hiring in each of these fields. Cal Quate and Ted Geballe were among the first professors recruited by Applied Physics when still a division. Leadership in Applied Physics drove Stanford’s growth in condensed matter physics, starting with the hire of Geballe from Bell Labs. The hiring in 1969 of Vehe Petrosian launched astrophysics efforts, and Bob Byer, also arriving in 1969, solidified the department’s world-renowned efforts in photonics and lasers. Later, interest in ultracold atomic physics led to the recruitment of Steve Chu (Nobel Prize 1997) as a professor in both the Applied Physics and Physics Departments. Our department has been chaired by many distinguished faculty whose names appear at the bottom of this page, along with a complete list of AP faculty through the ages. Paula Perron was the administrative glue and encyclopedia for the department throughout most of its history, from her arrival at Stanford in 1971 till her retirement as departmental administrator in 2017.