Dennis Gabor Biography

Dennis Gabor was a Hungarian-born British electrical engineer and physicist, best known for inventing holography. He received the prestigious 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics, 1971 “for his invention and development of the holographic method”. He started his career as a research engineer for the firm ‘Siemens & Halske AG’ in Berlin but within a few years had to escape Nazi Germany because of his Jewish ancestry. He reached England where he joined the Thomson-Houston Company in Rugby and later became a British citizen. In 1947, he conjured up the concept of holography and by using conventional filtered-light sources, developed the basic technique. In 1949, he became a faculty member of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London and within a couple of years, became a professor of Applied Electron Physics. His other notable work included research on physical optics, communication theory, high-speed oscilloscopes, and television. Apart from winning the Nobel Prize, he received more than 100 patents for his work. His most celebrated work remains the holography, which became commercially feasible after the advent of the laser in 1960. He is fondly referred to as the ‘Father of Holography’.