Florin Abelès (October 20, 1922 – April 12, 2005)was a French physicist who specialized in optics. In his 1949 doctoral thesis, Abelès developed a transfer-matrix formalism to compute the transmission and reflection of light by thin dielectric layers. When

Lyman G. Parratt Lyman G. Parratt (May 17, 1908 - June 29, 1995) was an American physicist. He is known for various research using X-rays. Parratt was born in Salt Lake City. In 1954, Parratt used X-rays to explore the surface of copper-coated glass, thereby creat ...

performed the first

x-ray reflectometry X-ray reflectivity (sometimes known as X-ray specular reflectivity, X-ray reflectometry, or XRR) is a surface-sensitive analytical technique used in chemistry, physics, and materials science to characterize Interface (matter), surfaces, thin films ...

experiment in 1954, he developed an equivalent recursion method. Nowadays, Abelès matrices or Parratt recursion are exchangeably used in investigations of multilayers by

, neutron reflectometry, or

ellipsometry Ellipsometry is an optical technique for investigating the dielectric properties (complex refractive index or dielectric function) of thin films. Ellipsometry measures the change of polarization upon reflection or transmission and compares it ...

. In 1969, Abelès founded the journal ''

Optics Communications ''Optics Communications'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Elsevier. It covers all fields of optical science and technology and was established in 1969. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in: *Chemical ...

''. He served as editor-in-chief until 1993.

References

1922 births 2005 deaths People from Galați 20th-century French physicists Romanian emigrants to France {{France-physicist-stub