GERHARD H. DIEKE, one of the world’s foremost experts in spectroscopy, was a professor of physics at Johns Hopkins for 35 years and chair of the department from 1950 until his death in 1965. He helped develop the spectroscopic techniques used in the chemical analysis of metals–a discovery that was credited with saving millions of man-hours during World War II by expediting the sorting of scrap metal–and his research on crystals led to the first lasers.
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Gerhard H. Dieke Professorship in Physics and Astronomy
Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Established in 1989 by the estate of Sally Harrison Dieke in memory of her husband
Held by Collin Leslie Broholm
COLLIN LESLIE BROHOLM is the Gerhard H. Dieke Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He earned his PhD from the University of Copenhagen in 1988, was a postdoc at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1988-1990, and joined Johns Hopkins in 1990. An experimental condensed matter physicist, Dr. Broholm is interested in anomalous forms of magnetism, superconductivity, and their interplay. Of particular interest are crystalline materials where quantum effects are enhanced on account of competing interactions (frustration) or low dimensionality. The main experimental tool is neutron scattering and Dr. Broholm has a longstanding involvement in development of the corresponding instrumentation. He has built two spectrometers at the NIST Center for Neutron Research and has served on a number of committees overseeing instrumentation development at National Facilities for Neutron Scattering. Dr. Broholm received the Presidential Faculty Fellowship in 1994, and became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004. He served on the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee from 1999-2003, and is presently serving on the Solid State Sciences Advisory Committee of the National Research Council. Dr. Broholm is the director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Quantum Matter.