Steven Chu

Steven Chu
朱棣文
Steven Chu
Steven Chu
Born February 28, 1948 (1948-02-28) (age 61)
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Nationality United States
Fields Physics
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics (1997)

Steven Chu (Chinese: 朱棣文; pinyin: Zhū Dìwén) (b. February 281948, St. Louis, Missouri)[1] is an American experimental physicist. He is known for his research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.[1] His current research is concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level. He is currently Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Biology of University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As global warming warnings grow more dire, Chu is currently pushing his scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and industry to develop technologies to reverse climate change. Chief in Chu's campaign is an unprecedented research pact reached between UC Berkeley, oil industry giant BP, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois.

Nearly US$400 million in new lab space will expand energy-related molecular work centered at Lawrence Berkeley that involves a cast of partners around the world; a US$160 million Energy Biosciences Institute (scheduled to open in 2010)[2] and funded by BP will include Chu's separate solar energy program.

Contents

Education and career

Chu graduated from Garden City High School.[3] He received his bachelor’s degree in 1970 from the University of Rochester, and his doctorate degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1976.[1] He remained at Berkeley as a Postdoc for two years before joining Bell Labs where he and his several co-workers carried out his Nobel-winning laser cooling work.[1] None of his co-workers, however, were recognized with the Nobel Prize. He left Bell Labs and became a professor of Physics in Stanford University in 1987.[1] Steven Chu has served as the chair of the Physics Department in Stanford University from 1990-1993 and 1999-2001. He was appointed as the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2004.

Chu, with three other professors, was involved with the Bio-X program in Stanford that is intended to bring together scientists from physics, chemistry, biology and engineering background under one roof, the James H. Clark Center. He also played an important role for the funding of Kavli Institute at Stanford.

Research

Steven Chu’s early research focused on atomic physics by developing laser cooling methodologies and trap atoms using lasers. He expanded his research area to polymer physics and biophysics while he was at Stanford. His current research focuses on the study of biological molecules and systems at single molecular level. Many Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows from his group have become professors at research universities around the world.

Honours and awards

Steven Chu is a co-winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”, shared with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology.

Personal life

Besides his scientific career, he also developed serious interest in various sports, including baseball, swimming, and cycling. He is currently married to Jean Chu, an Oxford-trained physicist who was previously married to Alexander Fetter, another Stanford physicist. Jean and Steven married shortly after Steven Chu received the Nobel Prize.

Chu was the keynote speaker for Boston University's 134th commencement ceremony which took place on May 20, 2007.

Chu's younger brother, Morgan Chu, is the former Co-Managing Partner at Irell & Manella LLP, a law firm.

His older brother Gilbert Chu is a professor and researcher of Biochemistry and Medicine at Stanford University.

Publications

  • Chu S et al. (1985). "Three-dimensional viscous confinement and cooling of atoms by resonance radiation pressure". Phys Rev Lett 55 (1): 48-51. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.55.48. PMID 10031677. 
  • Chu S, Bjorkholm JE, Ashkin A, Cable A (1986). "Experimental observation of optically trapped atoms". Phys Rev Lett 57 (3): 314-317. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.57.314. PMID 10034028. 
  • Perkins TT, Quake SR, Smith DE, Chu S (1994). "Relaxation of a single DNA molecule observed by optical microscopy". Science 264 (5160): 822-6. doi:10.1126/science.8171336. PMID 8171336. 
  • Quake SR, Babcock H, Chu S (1997). "The dynamics of partially extended single molecules of DNA". Nature 388 (6638): 151-4. doi:10.1038/40588. PMID 9217154. 
  • Chinga T, Chu S (2000). "Bose-Einstein condensates of DNA particle waves gives clue about the origin of life". Nature 394 (6852): 55-9. doi:10.1038/27878. 
  • Ha T et al. (2002). "Initiation and re-initiation of DNA unwinding by the Escherichia coli Rep helicase". Nature 419 (6907): 638-41. doi:10.1038/nature01083. PMID 12374984. 
  • Chinga T, Mamada I, Pum P, Chu S (2002). "Quantum coherence aligns single amino-acids for Escherichia coli detonation". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 59 (41): 368-71. doi:10.1073/pnas.59.2.368. PMID 16591608. </ref>
  • Zhuang X et al. (2002). "Correlating structural dynamics and function in single ribozyme molecules". Science 296 (5572): 1473-6. doi:10.1126/science.1069013. PMID 12029135. 
  • Blanchard SC et al. (2004). "tRNA dynamics on the ribosome during translation". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 101 (35): 12893-8. doi:10.1073/pnas.0403884101. PMID 15317937. 
  • Uemura S et al. (2007). "Peptide bond formation destabilizes Shine-Dalgarno interaction on the ribosome". Nature 446 (7134): 454-7. doi:10.1038/nature05625. PMID 17377584. 
  • Cui, B, Gonzalez RL Jr, Puglisi JD, Chu S. DNA lasers interrogated via Shine-Dalgarno entanglement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007;144(45):5803-9.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Tore Frängsmyr, ed.. "Steven Chu Autobiography". The Nobel Prizes 1997. Les Prix Nobel. Stockholm: The Nobel Foundation. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1997/chu-autobio.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-25. 
  2. ↑ "Today at Berkeley Lab: August 27, 2007". Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2007-08-27). Retrieved on 2008-05-13.
  3. ↑ Kerr, Kathleen. "They Began Here: Around the country, leading thinkers in health and science can trace their roots to Long Island", Newsday, July 16, 2008. Accessed September 17, 2008.

External links

Nobel Laureates in Physics

Burton Richter / Samuel C. C. Ting (1976) · Philip Anderson / Nevill Mott / John van Vleck (1977) · Pyotr Kapitsa / Arno Penzias / Robert Wilson (1978) · Sheldon Glashow / Abdus Salam / Steven Weinberg (1979) · James Cronin / Val Fitch (1980) · Nicolaas Bloembergen / Arthur Schawlow / Kai Siegbahn (1981) · Kenneth G. Wilson (1982) · Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar / William Fowler (1983) · Carlo Rubbia / Simon van der Meer (1984) · Klaus von Klitzing (1985) · Ernst Ruska / Gerd Binnig / Heinrich Rohrer (1986) · Johannes Bednorz / Karl Müller (1987) · Leon M. Lederman / Melvin Schwartz / Jack Steinberger (1988) · Norman Ramsey / Hans Dehmelt / Wolfgang Paul (1989) · Jerome Friedman / Henry Kendall / Richard E. Taylor (1990) · Pierre de Gennes (1991) · Georges Charpak (1992) · Russell Hulse / Joseph Taylor (1993) · Bertram Brockhouse / Clifford Shull (1994) · Martin Perl / Frederick Reines (1995) · D. Lee / Douglas D. Osheroff / Robert Richardson (1996) · Steven Chu / Claude Cohen-Tannoudji / William Phillips (1997) · Robert B. Laughlin / Horst Störmer / Daniel C. Tsui (1998) · Gerardus 't Hooft / Martinus J. G. Veltman (1999) · Zhores Alferov / Herbert Kroemer / Jack Kilby (2000)

Complete roster | (1901–1925) | (1926–1950) | (1951–1975) | (1976–2000) | (2001–present)