Dennis Gabor was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist, most notable for inventing holography, a system of lensless, three-dimensional photography that has many applications for which he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics.
A research engineer for the firm of Siemens and Halske in Berlin from 1927, Gabor fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and worked with the Thomson-Houston Company in England, later becoming a British subject. In 1947 he conceived the idea of holography and, by employing conventional filtered-light sources, developed the basic technique. Because conventional light sources generally provided either too little light or light that was too diffuse, holography did not become commercially feasible until the demonstration, in 1960, of the laser, which amplifies the intensity of light waves.
In 1949 Gabor joined the faculty of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, where in 1958 he became professor of applied electron physics. His other work included research on high-speed oscilloscopes, communication theory, physical optics, and television. Gabor was awarded more than 100 patents.
1956 – Fellow of the Royal Society
1964 – Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
1964 – D.Sc., University of London
1967 – Young Medal and Prize, for distinguished research in the field of optics
1967 – Colombus Award of the International Institute for Communications, Genoa
1968 – The first Albert A. Michelson Medal from The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia
1968 – Rumford Medal of the Royal Society
1970 – Honorary Doctorate, University of Southampton
1970 – Medal of Honor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
1970 – Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
1971 – Nobel Prize in Physics, for his invention and development of the holographic method
1971 – Honorary Doctorate, Delft University of Technology
1972 – Holweck Prize of the Société Française de Physique
Dennis-Gabor-Straße in Potsdam is named in his honour and is the location of the Potsdamer Centrum für Technologie.
2009 – Imperial College London opens Gabor Hall, a hall of residence named in his honour
