John Madey, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJohn Madey
American physicist
Date of Birth: 28-Feb-1943
Place of Birth: Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States
Date of Death: 05-Jul-2016
Profession: physicist
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Pisces 
About John Madey
- John M.
- J.
- Madey (28 February 1943 - 5 July 2016) was a professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a former director of the Free Electron Laser Laboratory at Duke University, and formerly a professor (research) at Stanford University.
- He is best known for his development of the free-electron laser (FEL) at Stanford University in the 1970s.Raised in Clark, New Jersey, Madey and his older brother Jules took an early interest in ham radio.
- In 1956, when John was 13 and Jules was 16, they began relaying communications from the south pole to families and friends in the United States.
- While an undergraduate at the California Institute of Technology, he had a discussion where the question came up as to whether or not it was possible to enhance the transition rate for bremsstrahlung through stimulated emission.
- Madey received a BS degree in Physics and a MS degree in Quantum Electronics from the California Institute of Technology in 1964 and 1965.
- He continued thinking about the stimulated emission question while working on his doctoral degree at Stanford, when he invented the free-electron laser.
- He was awarded a PhD in 1970, and appointed as Professor (Research) of Electrical Engineering in 1986. Stanford University refused to patent this idea so Madey filed for a patent on his own.
- In the following years, he developed an innovative laser research program which was highly regarded in the scientific community.
- An opportunity arose for Madey to leave Stanford, taking a tenured position at the Physics Department of Duke University, which Madey accepted in 1988, moving his FEL research laboratory with him in 1989.
- This laboratory contained substantial equipment which required Duke to build an addition to its physics building to house the lab.
- In addition, while at Stanford, Madey had obtained sole ownership of two patents practiced by some of the equipment in the FEL lab.
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