Kastler, Alfred, 1902–84, German-born French physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Bordeaux, 1936. Kastler was a lecturer at Clermont-Ferrand Univ. (1936–38), professor at the Univ. of Bordeaux (1938–41), professor at the École Normale Supérieure (1941–68), and director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (1968–72). He received the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery and development of two methods—double resonance and optical pumping—for using light to manipulate and study the energy levels of electrons in atoms. Both of these techniques were improvements on earlier methods, allowing for more detailed studies of the structure of atoms.
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