Nobel Prize Report:

John L Hall, a Scientist Emeritus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and a Fellow of JILA (joint institute of NIST and University of Colorado) has been awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Hall shared the Nobel with Theodor W Hänsch of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and a professor of physics at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, and Roy J Glauber, a professor of physics at Harvard University.

Hall and Hänsch were awarded half the Nobel Prize for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique. An optical frequency comb is generated by a laser specially designed to produce a series of extremely short — a few billionths of a second — equally spaced pulses of light.

Contents:

• Laser Works at Boulder Laboratories in the Early Sixties (H Takuma)
• Optical Cavities and Gravity — Wave Detectors (R Drever)
• Converting Photons to Decibels — Travels with John Hall in Quantum Optics Land (H J Kimble)
• Funny Lineshapes in Saturated Absorption Spectroscopy (E Arimondo)
• The Hidden Side of a Laser Beam (J W Moore et al.)
• Gaining Control in Quantum Optics (H-A Bachor)
• Following the Path Blazed by Jan Hall (L Hollberg)
• When Physics Rules Robotics (M Siegel)
• The Optical Calcium Frequency Standard of PTB (U Sterr et al.)
• Jan’s Greatest Gifts to My Scientific Career (J Ye)
• and other papers