Richard Geller (25 April 1927 – 1 July 2007) was an experimental nuclear and plasma physicist. He was born on 25 April 1927 in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and died on 1 July 2007 at the age of 80, in

Grenoble Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...

. Geller received his undergraduate degree from the

Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers The (; ; abbr. CNAM) is an AMBA-accredited French ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement''. It is a member of the '' Conférence des Grandes écoles'', which is an equivalent to the Ivy League schools in the United States, Oxbridge in th ...

, Paris and his Doctorat en Sciences, under Prof. F. Perrin from the Sorbonne (1954). He was hired in 1948 by F. Joliot Curie to work at Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA; Atomic Energy Commission) and remained there until leaving in 1992, with the exception of a sabbatical at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

(1961–1962), where, as a research associate, he developed the first bumpy torus plasma. In the 1960s he developed electron cyclotron resonance heating of plasma physics as part of controlled fusion. In the 1970s and 1980s his group developed the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source, ECRIS, for use in accelerators on for particle physics, nuclear physics, and medical applications. In 1992 he went to the Institut des Sciences Nucléaires de Grenoble, where he developed a new

electron cyclotron resonance Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) is a phenomenon observed in plasma physics, condensed matter physics, and accelerator physics. It happens when the frequency of incident radiation coincides with the natural frequency of rotation of electrons in ...

(ECR) method that was used to generate radioactive ion beams in nuclear physics. In 1983 he received the "Prix Gegner of the Académie des Sciences, Paris," in 1987 the "Prix du CEA," and in 2001 the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

's Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics, shared with Claude Lyneis. A prize awarded by Pantechnik (a manufacturer of ECR sources) is named after him and is delivered every 2 year at the ECRIS international conference. He authored a book ''Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources and ECR Plasmas.''

References

1927 births 2007 deaths French physicists University of Paris alumni Austrian emigrants to France {{France-physicist-stub