Obituary of Dmitri Z. Garbuzov

Dmitri Z. Garbuzov, one of the pioneers of room temperature continuous wave operating diode lasers, died on August 20, 2006 at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He is survived by his wife Galina Minina, daughter Alina, and son, Dmitri Jr. Dmitri was born on October 27, 1940 in the city of Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union to the family of a prominent engineer, Zalman Garbuzov. In 1945, the family moved to Leningrad (now St.-Petersburg), where in 1962 Dmitri graduated from the Department of Physics of Leningrad State University.

In 1964, Dmitri joined the group of Zhores Alferov as his graduate student at A.F. Ioffe Physical Technical Institute of Leningrad and soon became one of the leading members of this group. At the time, Alferov’s team was among the very few research groups in the world that studied heterojunctions in semiconductors. In 2000, Zh. Alferov and H. Kroemer were awarded the Nobel Prize for their pioneering work.

Dmitri Garbuzov received his Ph.D. in 1968, and Doctor-of-Science degree in 1979. In 1991 he became a corresponding member of The Russian Academy of Science.

In 1972, Dr. Alferov and his pupils colleagues V.M. Andreev, D.Z. Garbuzov, V.I. Korol kov and D.N. Tret ykov were awarded the Lenin Prize, the highest civilian award in the Soviet Union at the time. The Lenin Prize’s citation was Fundamental Research of Heterojunctions in Semiconductors and Development of Novel Devices on their Bases.

In 1979, Dmitri became a head of the Semiconductor Luminescence and Injection Emitters Laboratory at the A.F. Ioffe Physical Technical Institute. Heterostructures of quaternary solid solutions of InGaAsP for lasers based on these structures were investigated under his leadership.

The aluminum -free diode heterostructure lasers became the next step in his scientific life. He developed lasers with wavelengths of 0.75-1.0 µm, which include the visible (red) part of the spectrum.

Dmitri had the exceptional characteristic of examining problems ab initio. His clear thinking often led him to unconventional conclusions, which nonetheless emerged as valid and revolutionary. He led the research on re-radiation effects in double heterostructures. His group at the Ioffe Institute achieved almost 100% efficiency of luminescence in GaAlAs heterostructures. In 1987 Dmitri was awarded the State Prize, the second highest award in the former Soviet Union.

In 1991 Dmitri received the Humboldt Award for one-year’s work in Germany, the high distinction given to a foreign scholar in Germany, for his work on Al-free diode lasers. In 1992, Dmitri used his Humboldt Award for an extended visit to conduct research on InAlGaAs/InGaAs distributed feedback lasers at Professor Dieter Bimberg’s laboratory at the Technical University in Berlin.

Dmitri liked Russia, Russian culture, Russian lakes, and forests. Therefore, emigration to the U.S. was not an easy step for him. He started his work in U.S. at the North-Western University in Chicago, and in 1994 Dmitri joined Princeton University and Sarnoff Corporation in Princeton, NJ. Dmitri continued advancing the performance of semiconductor devices at both institutions. There, Dmitri worked on antimonide lasers demonstrating record wavelengths of 2.7 m. At the same time, he made a significant impact in high power diode lasers in general by practical introducing the concept of the broadened waveguide, which now serves as a basis for the entire industry producing high power lasers for industrial applications.

In 2000, Dmitri became one of the founders of Princeton Lightwave Inc. (PLI). His work on high-power stripe lasers was the main research that laid the foundation of PLI. At PLI, Dmitri kept pushing the envelope of production-worthy high power lasers.

We remember Dmitri for his enthusiasm, boundless energy, clear way of thinking, an almost childish curiosity that is actually the main driving force of a good scientist. He was always striving for new horizons in science and not only in science. We remember his outstanding sense of humor. Many young physicists, both in Russia and the U.S., owe a debt of gratitude to Dmitri for his help at the start of their careers. Several of his contemporaries remember Dmitri as one of the best friends in their lives.