Boris P. Stoicheff

Boris P. Stoicheff, FRS,[1] (June 1, 1924[2] – April 15, 2010[3]) was a Macedonian Canadian[4] physicist.

Boris P. Stoicheff

FRS
Boris P. Stoicheff
Born
Boris Peter Stoicheff[1]

(1924-06-01)June 1, 1924
Bitola, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
(present-day North Macedonia)
DiedApril 15, 2010(2010-04-15) (aged 85)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
NationalityMacedonian
CitizenshipCanadian
EducationUniversity of Toronto (Ph.D. 1950)
AwardsWilliam F. Meggers Award (1981)
Frederic Ives Medal (1983)
Henry Marshall Tory Medal (1989)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsNational Research Council (Canada)
University of Toronto
ThesisRaman spectroscopy of gases at high pressures (1950)
Doctoral advisorHarry Lambert Welsh
Other academic advisorsGerhard Herzberg (Post doctoral advisor)

Stoicheff was born in Bitola, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (present-day North Macedonia). His family emigrated to Canada 1931, and he grew up in Toronto. He earned a degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto in 1947, and a PhD from the same institution in 1950.[5] He stayed for another year at Toronto on a fellowship, then went to the National Research Council (Canada) in Ottawa to work as a postdoctoral researcher in the spectroscopy laboratory headed by Gerhard Herzberg, where he worked on Raman scattering.[2] In 1953 he was promoted at the National Research Council (Canada) to a permanent research position.

Stoicheff became well known for his Raman spectroscopy through the 1950s, publishing a number of previously unavailable high-resolution molecular spectra. In 1954, he married his wife Joan, and they had a son, Peter Stoicheff, in 1956 (who would go on to become the President of the University of Saskatchewan). In the late 1950s, he became interested in Brillouin scattering, and attempted to build a laser, though Theodore Maiman succeeded in doing so first. Stoicheff nonetheless soon built the first laser in Canada, and researched using it for spectroscopy. He spent a sabbatical year in 1963 at MIT, working with Charles Townes and some of Townes's graduate students on the same subject, and in 1964 took a professorship at the University of Toronto.[2]

In the late 1970s he changed focus from Brillouin spectroscopy to Rydberg spectroscopy. He retired in 1989, though continued to perform research. By 2000, he was working on the origin of diffuse interstellar bands.[2]

Honors and awards

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1975. He served as president of the Optical Society of America in 1976[6] and was awarded their William F. Meggers Award in 1981 and their Frederic Ives Medal in 1983. He also received the Henry Marshall Tory Medal, in 1989.

Tributes

Since 2011, the Optical Society of America and the Canadian Association of Physicists sponsors a scholarship in his name that is awarded annually to an undergraduate or graduate student who has demonstrated both research excellence and significant service in either professional organizations.[7][8]

See also

References
  1. van Driel, Henry M. (2019). "Boris Peter Stoicheff. 1 June 1924—15 April 2010". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 66: 403–422. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2018.0026.
  2. van Driel, H.M.; May, A.D. (2000). "Boris P. Stoicheff: A tribute on the occasion of his 75th birthday" (PDF). Canadian Journal of Physics. 78 (5–6): xiii–xviii. Bibcode:2000CaJPh..78D..13.. doi:10.1139/cjp05-06tribute. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-27.
  3. "OSA Mourns the Loss of Boris P. Stoicheff, OSA Past President". Optical Society of America. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
  4. Kasher, R. (1996). Passport's Guide to Ethnic Toronto: A Complete Guide to the Many Faces & Cultures of Toronto. Passport Books. ISBN 9780844289939. Retrieved 2015-08-30.
  5. Stoicheff, Boris P. (1951). Raman spectroscopy of gases at high pressures (Ph.D. thesis). University of Toronto. OCLC 978185166 – via ProQuest.
  6. "Past Presidents of the Optical Society of America". Optical Society of America.
  7. "Boris P. Stoicheff Memorial Scholarship". Optical Society of America.
  8. "Boris P. Stoicheff Memorial Graduate Scholarship". Canadian Association of Physicists.
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