Michael Tinkham (February 23, 1928 – November 4, 2010) was an American physicist. He was Rumford Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Physics at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. He is best known for his work on

superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlik ...

Professional life

Tinkham was born and raised in Brooklyn Township, a farming community in Green Lake County, Wisconsin. He studied nearby at Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he obtained a BA in 1951. He continued at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, achieving a Master's in 1951, followed by a PhD in 1954. During 1954–55 he worked in the Clarendon Laboratory at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

. In 1955 he moved to the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, in becoming an assistant professor in 1957, with a full professorship laler. In 1966 he joined the faculty at Harvard University as full professor. During 1978–79 he was a Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist at the University of Karlsruhe. Tinkham's research concentrated on superconductivity and in 1975 he published one of the classic textbooks on the subject. Later he focused on material properties where sample dimensions are in the nanometer range, including studies of nanowires and carbon nanotubes. In 1970 Tinkham was made a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

, and in 1974 was awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize. He received the Fred E. Saalfeld Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Science in 2005. He has also been honored for his achievements by his colleagues in the Journal of Superconductivity. Tinkham maintained an active research group at

until his retirement. Over these years, he trained over 45 students who received their PhDs under his guidance.

Work on superconductivity

In 1956, Tinkham and a fellow postdoc Rolfe Glover found the direct evidence of an energy gap in the continuous distribution of energy levels in the form of a sharp rise in the optical absorption spectrum of a superconductor. The absorption spectrum observed was a direct consequence of the coherence factors of BCS theory due to

John Bardeen John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the ...

, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer; along with other observations, it provided the first substantive experimental confirmation of BCS theory. Tinkham also studied the macroscopic quantum behaviour of superconductors, and examined the conditions under which transitions between different energy levels happen when superconductors are carrying a current.

References

1928 births 2010 deaths American physicists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Harvard University faculty Ripon College (Wisconsin) alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners {{US-physicist-stub