Isaac David Abella (June 20, 1934 – October 23, 2016) was a Canadian physicist who was a professor at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

."Isaac Abella"
, Department of Physics, University of Chicago, 2008 He specialized in

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...

physics, quantum optics, and

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter ...

."Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering"
,

Marquis Who's Who Marquis Who's Who ( or ) is an American publisher of a number of directories containing short biographies. The books usually are entitled ''Who's Who in...'' followed by some subject, such as ''Who's Who in America'', ''Who's Who of American Wome ...

, 10th Edition 2008 Isaac was the cousin of

Irving Abella Irving Martin Abella (July 2, 1940 – July 3, 2022) was a Canadian historian who served as a professor at York University from 1968 to 2013. He specialized in the history of the Jews in Canada and the Canadian labour movement. Early life Abe ...

Early life and education

Isaac Abella was born on June 20, 1934 in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. Abella received his Bachelor of Arts degree (1957) from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

, Master of Arts (1959) degree, and Ph.D. (1963) in Physics from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in New York. He studied under Charles H. Townes and was involved in the early research work of laser development. Notably, Abella's thesis under Townes was among the earliest work on two-photon absorption.

Career

Abella was known for his work with laser coherent transients, where photon echo techniques are used to probe metastable excited states in rare gas mixtures such as helium, neon, and argon. These states are produced in a weakly ionized RF plasma discharge, and nitrogen-pumped dye lasers are used to generate the coherent super-position states.

The University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He was also known for his work in spectroscopy of rare-earth laser materials. Samples of YLF and YAG crystals doped with

erbium Erbium is a chemical element with the symbol Er and atomic number 68. A silvery-white solid metal when artificially isolated, natural erbium is always found in chemical combination with other elements. It is a lanthanide, a rare-earth element, orig ...

thulium Thulium is a chemical element with the symbol Tm and atomic number 69. It is the thirteenth and third-last element in the lanthanide series. Like the other lanthanides, the most common oxidation state is +3, seen in its oxide, halides and other c ...

, and

holmium Holmium is a chemical element with the symbol Ho and atomic number 67. It is a rare-earth element and the eleventh member of the lanthanide series. It is a relatively soft, silvery, fairly corrosion-resistant and malleable metal. Like a lot of ...

are being studied with selective laser excitation in the region of 780 nm, the erbium bands. These materials can be efficiently optically pumped by the AlGaAs-GaAs laser diode arrays, but dye laser excitation is used instead. He was interested in the energy transfer process: Er to Tm, to Ho, which concentrates energy emission at 2.085 µm at room temperature and at liquid nitrogen. The process is a radiationless, almost resonant transfer of energy between sites and depends on the relative concentrations of the rare earth ions. In particular his experimental interests are measuring decay rates, excited state absorption, and branching ratios and detailed theories of such processes.

Personal life and death

Isaac Abella died on October 23, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 82. He was married to Mary Ann Abella, Professor of Art, Chicago State University."Mary Ann Abella"
, ''Chicago Chronicle'', Vol.23 No.17, 27 May 2004 He has a son Benjamin, and daughter, Sarah.

Articles

* * * *A. E, Siegman, Lasers, University Science Press, Sausalito CA, 1986 *Charles Townes. "How the Laser Happened", Oxford University Press, 1999 *J. Hecht, "The Race to Make the First Laser", Oxford University Press, 2005

References

External links

Oral history for Isaac Abella (22 October 1985), American Institute of Physics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abella, Isaac 1934 births 2016 deaths Jewish Canadian scientists Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Laser researchers Scientists from Toronto University of Toronto alumni University of Chicago faculty Canadian expatriate academics in the United States 20th-century Canadian physicists 21st-century Canadian physicists Jewish physicists Rare earth scientists