Alexander Smakula
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| Alexander Smakula | |
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| Born | 1900 Dobrovody, (today's Ukraine) |
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| Died | 17 May 1983 Auburn [disambiguation needed] |
| Nationality |  Ukrainian |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions | Odessa University Zeiss Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Alma mater | Georg-August University of Göttingen |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Pohl |
| Known for | anti-reflective coating |
Alexander Smakula (Ukrainian: Олександр Теодорович Смакула) (1900, Dobrovody (Ukraine) – 17 May 1983, Auburn [disambiguation needed]) was a Ukrainian physicist best known for the discovery of anti-reflective coating of lenses.
[edit] Biography
Smakula was born in Dobrovody village (Ternopil Oblast) in a family of peasants. After finishing his studies at the Ternopil gymnasium he applied to the Georg-August University of Göttingen from which he graduated in 1927. Afterwards he worked as an assistant of Prof. Robert Pohl.After his short stay at the Odessa University Alexander Smakula returned to Germany as a head of an optics laboratory in Heidelberg. From 1934 he worked at the Zeiss company in Jena. At those times, in 1935, Smakula invented and patented anti-reflective coating for lenses, which appeared to be a serious improvement in many optical devices. After the end of World War II Smakula went to the USA, where he first worked in Virginia investigating materials for infrared technology. In 1951 he got an offer of professorship at the MIT, where he mainly did research on crystals. Alexander Smakula died on May 17, 1983 and is buried in Auburn [disambiguation needed].
