Raymond Y. Chiao is an American physicist known for his work in quantum optics. He is a retired professor at the University of California, Merced's physics department, where he is doing research on gravitational radiation with Prof. Jay Sharping.

Biography

Raymond Chiao was born in Hong Kong on October 9, 1940. He moved to the United States in 1947 when he was a child. He grew up in New York City and attended Collegiate School. There, he became interested in science after reading George Gamow’s book One Two Three… Infinity.

In 1957, he was admitted to Princeton University as an electrical engineering student. Later, he changed to the physics department and worked on a senior project about the quantization of general relativity, which was suggested to him by John Archibald Wheeler. After that, he shifted from theoretical physics to experimental physics during his graduate studies at MIT, where he studied under Charles Hard Townes. This change happened shortly after the ruby laser was first made in an experiment. His thesis focused on the first observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering.

In 1965, he earned his Ph.D. from MIT and taught as an assistant professor there until 1967. He then joined the University of California, Berkeley, in 1967 and stayed there until 2006. During this time, he guided at least 11 Ph.D. students. After 2006, he began working at the University of California, Merced, which was a newly opened campus.

Discoveries

Chiao has gained recognition in the field of quantum optics because of several key experiments. Inspired by earlier work done by Günter Nimtz in 1992, he measured the time it takes for particles to tunnel through barriers, a process called quantum tunneling. His results showed this time was between 1.5 and 1.7 times the speed of light. These findings have led to ongoing scientific discussion about their meaning (see references below for more information on tunneling time). Additionally, he was the first person to measure the Berry's Phase, also known as the geometric phase.

Current work

As of 2006, he began working as a faculty member at UC Merced and dedicated himself to detecting gravitational waves by using superconductors. As of 2010, he retired from his teaching position but continues to advise several PhD students.