OSHEROFF, DOUGLAS DEAN

OSHEROFF, DOUGLAS DEAN (1945– ) U.S. physicist and Nobel Laureate. Osheroff was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and graduated from the California Institute of Technology before gaining his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University. He joined the Department of Solid State and Low Temperature Research of Bell Research Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, in 1972 and was head of this department from 1982–87. He moved to Stanford University as professor of physics and was appointed J.G. Jackson and C.J. Wood Professor of Physics in 1992 and chairman of the department of physics (1993–96). Osheroff 's research concerns low temperature physics and led to the discovery of three new superfluid forms of helium-3 resulting from pair forming by the super-cooled 3He atoms. This work influenced the future course of low temperature research and has important theoretical implications for understanding superconductivity and its practical applications. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics (1996), shared with his collaborators David Lee and Robert Richardson. His subsequent research continues to focus on the behavior of condensed matter at very low temperature. His awards include the Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize of the British Institute of Physics (1976) and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In recognition of his teaching expertise, he received Stanford University's Walter J. Gores Award. He married Phyllis S.K. Liu in 1970. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)