Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 12-19, 1999

Volume 27, Number 28

Endowed Professorship: Physicist Grober
is appointed to Barton Weller chair

Robert D. Grober, a physicist specializing on the advancement of novel techniques of optical imaging, has been named the Barton Weller Associate Professor of Applied Physics. His five-year appointment is effective July 1.

Grober, who is on sabbatical in Europe this term, is an associate professor in the departments of applied physics and physics. His research focuses on the development of near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), a technique used to obtain optical images with spatial resolution less than the diffraction limit. His work has applications in the semiconductor and telecommunications industries, particularly in the fabrication of semiconductor nanostructures, as well as in gene mapping, specifically for the imaging of fluorescently labeled DNA. Grober pioneered the use of NSOM as a tool for the spectroscopic characterization of quantum wells and wires at a very low temperatures.

In Grober's laboratory on campus, techniques of near-field optics are used for both structural and chemical analysis. One technique, called scanned probe microscopy, involves scanning a very small probe in close proximity to a sample, such as genetic material.

Two years ago, Grober was selected as one of 20 of "the most promising science and engineering researchers at universities in the United States" by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The foundation awarded him a five-year, $500,000 fellowship to further his research. Last year, he was one of 20 junior faculty members awarded a University Fellowship from Yale in support of his work. The Yale fellowship is given annually to "outstanding" junior faculty members to help advance their research at a critical period in their careers. University Fellows are freed from classroom responsibilities and are given leave with salary so they can concentrate on their research.

Grober earned his undergraduate degree in 1984 from Vanderbilt University, where he majored in physics and mathematics. He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maryland-College Park in 1986 and 1991, respectively. He was a postdoctoral member of the technical staff at the Materials Chemistry Research Laboratory at AT&T Bell Labs from 1992 to 1994, when he joined the Yale faculty as an assistant professor.

Grober has written more than 25 scientific papers, and he has been invited to give talks at universities, corporations and laboratories throughout the United States and in Europe. He currently is a member of the DARPA/IDA Defense Science Study Group.

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Endowed Professorship: Physicist Grober is appointed to Barton Weller chair
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