Peter Pershan
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Peter S. Pershan is a prominent American [[physicist]].
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==Education and career==
Peter Pershan earned his [[B.S.]] at [[Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn]] in 1956 and his [[Ph.D.]] in [[Physics]] at [[Harvard University]] in 1960 for [[nuclear magnetic resonance]] under the supervision of [[Nicolaas Bloembergen]]. After a short postdoctoral appointment with Bloembergen he was appointed an assistant professor at Harvard University, where he is now a Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, at both Physics Department and Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
==Research==
Pershan began his career in nuclear magnetic resonance; however, before
moving on to other things, he and Bloembergen produced some of the first papers on [[non-linear optics]], a field for which Bloembergen later received [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] in 1981.
He remained active in this field until the early 1980’s when he wrote a book on [[liquid crystals]] and moved
into the then-new field of [[synchrotron radiation]].
Along with [[Jens Als-Nielsen]], Pershan developed the first
synchrotron x-ray reflectometer for the study of the horizontal free surface of a liquid, and carried out the
first synchrotron measurements on liquid surfaces at [[DESY#HASYLAB|HASYLAB]], [[DESY]] in 1982. The [[liquid surface spectrometers]]
now at [[Advanced Photon Source]] and the [[National Synchrotron Light Source]] are all variations of the HASYLAB instrument.
Since 1982 Pershan has led the field in exploration of such diverse liquid surfaces as [[superfluid]]
helium, [[water]], and [[liquid metals]]. Aside from sabbaticals at the [[University of Paris]],
[[Brookhaven National Laboratory]], and [[Risø National Laboratory]] Pershan has been at [[Harvard University]]
(where he has been a faculty member since 1961) since he arrived as a graduate student in September of 1956.
==Books==
Peter Pershan is perhaps best known for his text on liquid crystals: "Structure of Liquid Crystal Phases", World Scientific, 1988 (ISBN [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9971506688 9971506688]).
==External links==
*[http://liquids.deas.harvard.edu/peter/welcome.html Peter Pershan's web page]
*[http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/pershan.html Peter Pershan's profile at Harvard]
[[Category:American physicists]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty|Pershan]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni|Pershan]]