Robert Schmieder

Robert William Schmieder (born July 10, 1941) is an American scientist and explorer. Schmieder has had a multidisciplinary career, broadly divided between physics and related physical sciences, and natural science and exploration. In most of his projects, he created and led teams of both professional scientists and volunteers. His work is documented in about 100 technical publications and 10 books. Among his most significant work was the invention of laser spark spectroscopy (now commercialized), the formulation of nanologic (the use of nanoscale devices in computers), and the concept of underwater islands (which led to designation of the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary).

Early life and education Schmieder was born and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, a member of a large family who were descendants of pioneers. His maternal grandmother migrated on horseback from Texas to the mining town of Superior, in the Arizona Territory. His father emigrated from Germany as a watchmaker and was later a businessman. As a child, Robert demonstrated an exceptional curiosity and interest in science, and decided on his career before the age of 12. In high school, he won several science awards, including the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and the Arizona State Science Fair. He was among the first in the United States to develop amateur rocketry, stimulated by events that led to the first Earth satellites in 1957.

Formal education B.A. Physics, Occidental College, 1963 B.S. Physics, California Institute of Technology, 1963 M.A. Physics, Columbia University, 1965 Ph.D. Physics, Columbia University, 1968

Physical science

Atomic and nuclear physics Schmieder's research career in physical science began while an undergraduate at Caltech, when he wrote his first technical papers.An electromagnetic acceleration correction to the Debye relaxation time, R. W. Schmieder, Am. J. Phys. 31, 885 (1963).Operator formulation of plane mirror systems, R. W. Schmieder, Appl. Opt. 6, 537 (1967).Regions of viewability for a pair of intersecting semi-infinite plane mirrors, R. W. Schmieder, Appl. Opt. 6, 773 (1967).Stokes algebra formalism, R. W. Schmieder, J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 59, 297 (1969).Matrix elements of the quadratic stark effect on atoms with hyperfine structure, R. W. Schmieder, Am. J. Phys. 40, 297 (1972). While still an undergraduate, he worked at the CIT synchrotron laboratory, and he participated in the discovery of a new isotope (In106) using the Berkeley 60-inch cyclotron.H. Shugart and R. W. Schmieder, unpublished (1961). For his PhD thesis at Columbia University, under the direction of Allen Lurio and William Happer, he made a definitive series of measurements of the hyperfine structure constants and lifetimes of the free alkali atoms.Hyperfine structure and lifetimes of the 4 2P3/2and 5 2P3/2 States of K39, R. W. Schmieder, A. Lurio, and W. Happer, Phys. Rev. 173, 76 (1968).Level-crossing measurements of the lifetimes and hyperfine constants of the 2P3/2 states of the stable alkali atoms, R. W. Schmieder, A. Lurio, W. Happer, and A. Khadjavi, Phys. Rev. A2, 1216 (1970).Quadratic stark effect in the 2P3/2 states of the alkali atoms, R. W. Schmieder, A. Lurio, and W. Happer, Phys. Rev. A3, 1209 (1970). As a post-doc at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, under the guidance of Richard Marrus, he was the first to produce highly stripped atoms in a high-energy accelerator (the Berkeley HILAC) and to observe relativistic and multipole atomic transitions in those ions.Observation of the magnetic dipole decay of the 2 3S1 state of heliumlike Si XIII, S XV, and Ar XVII, R. Marrus and R. W. Schmieder, Phys. Lett. 32A, 431 (1970).Relativistic magnetic dipole emission: Lifetime of the 1s 2s 3S1 state of heliumlike argon, R. W. Schmieder and R. Marrus, Phys. Rev. Lett. 25, 1245 (1970).Observation of the magnetic quadrupole decay 2 3P2—-> 1 1S0 of heliumlike argon XVII and lifetime of the 2 3P2 state, R. Marrus and R. W. Schmieder, Phys. Rev. Lett. 25, 1692 (1970).Two-photon decay and lifetime of the 2 2S1/2 State of hydrogenlike argon, R. W. Schmieder and R. Marrus, Phys. Rev. Lett. 25, 1692 (1970).Lifetime of the 2 3S1 state of heliumlike argon (Z=18) and heliumlike titanium (Z=22), H. Gould, R. Marrus, and R. W. Schmieder, Phys. Rev. Lett. 31, 504 (1973).Forbidden decays of hydrogenlike and heliumlike argon, R. Marrus and R. W. Schmieder, Phys. Rev. A5, 1160 (1972).Double and triple photon decays of metastable 3P0 atomic states, R. W. Schmieder, Phys. Rev. A7, 1458 (1973). This work led to the new field of "high-energy atomic physics." He also made significant contributions to instrumentation for X-ray spectroscopy, including the Doppler-tuned XRay spectrometer,Large Diameter Rotating Lid Vacuum Chamber. R. W. Schmieder, Nucl. Inst. Meth. 102, 313 (1972).Doppler-tuned Beam-foil Spectrometer. R. W. Schmieder and R. Marrus, Nucl. Instrum. Methods 110, 459 (1973).Doppler-tuned Xray Spectrometer. R. W. Schmieder, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 45, 687 (1974) the electron ring accelerator as a spectroscopic source,Characteristic Xrays from xenon ions trapped in an electron ring, R. W. Schmieder, Phys. Lett. 47A, 415 (1974).The electron ring ion trap and spectroscopic instrumentation for basic studies related to the production of high charge state ions and the physics of highly ionized atoms, D. Keefe, L. J. Laslett, M. Michel, J. M. Peterson, and R. W. Schmieder, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Rept. ERAN-250 (1974).The application of a relativistic electron ring as a containment device for highly stripped ions, J. M. Hauptman, L. J. Laslett, W. W. Chupp, D. Keefe, G. R. Lambertson, R. W. Schmieder, and A. Salop, First Int'l Conf. Plasma Science, Knoxville, TN (1974). laser modulation of electron beams,Interference effects in laser-modulated electron beams, R. W. Schmieder, Appl. Phys. Lett. 20, 516 (1972). superconducting switches,Superconducting particle detectors, R. W. Schmieder, Sandia National Laboratories Rept. SLL-73-0223 (1973). Superconducting switches using radiation-induced quenching, R. W. Schmieder, IEEE Trans.MAG-11, 590 (1975). and laser/microwave gas breakdown.Pressure dependence of gas breakdown by combined laser and microwave radiation, R. W. Schmieder, J. Appl. Phys. 50, 712 (1979).Overlapping pulse technique for imaging space-time density contours in a gas, R. W. Schmieder, J. Appl. Phys. 51, 1871 (1980)

Spectroscopy and chemical physics In the early 1970s, he accepted a position at Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore. His first work at Sandia was the 1976 invention of laser spark spectroscopy,Laser sparks: Focus on combustion, R. W. Schmieder, Sandia Technology 5, 1 (1979).Striated filamentary sparks produced by a CO2 TEA laser, R. W. Schmieder, Opt. Lett. 4, 369 (1980).Imaging a conserved scalar in gas mixing by means of a linear spark, R. W. Schmieder and A. R. Kerstein, Appl. Opt. 19, 4210 (1980).Laser spark ignition and extinction of a methane/air diffusion flame, R. W. Schmieder, J. Appl. Phys. 52, 3000 (1981).Combustion applications of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, R. W. Schmieder, Proc. Conf. Electro-optics and Lasers, Anaheim, CA (1981).Techniques and applications of laser spark spectroscopy, R. W. Schmieder, Proc. Conf. LASER82, New Orleans (1982).Techniques for producing linear filamentary sparks, R. W. Schmieder, J. Appl. Phys. 53, 878 (1982).Dependence of striation spacing in linear laser sparks on gas pressure and luminosity, R. W. Schmieder, J. Appl. Phys. 53, 6096 (1982).Diode array images of linear laser sparks, R. W. Schmieder, J. Appl. Phys. 53, 6101 (1982). a technique that is now commercialized [see Supplemental references]. During the early 1980s, he was the first to record the UV fluorescence spectrum of acetylene,Spectrum of acetylene fluorescence excited by single XUV photons, R. W. Schmieder, J. Chem. Phys. 76, 2900 (1982). the emission spectrum of pure tritium gas,Optical emission of tritium gas, R. W. Schmieder, J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 72, 5943 (1982). the use of tritium for radiolytic polymerization of hydrocarbons,Agglomeration of polyacetylenic particulates and its relation to soot formation, R. W. Schmieder, 19th Int'l Symp. Comb., Haifa, Israel (1982), p. 1403.Growth of cuprene particles, R. W. Schmieder, Rad. Res. 99, 20 (1984). and the use of carbon-14 to track reaction pathways in carbon formation in flames.Radiotracer studies of soot formation in diffusion flames, R. W. Schmieder, 20th Int'l Symp. Comb. (Ann Arbor, MI), p. 1025.

Plasma physics and collective dynamics During the Strategic Defense Initiative period (mid-1980s), he led the effort to calculate the effects of clustering of X-ray lasers.Sandia National Laboratories Report [classified]. Following the SDI, he led a team that built two state-of-the-art electron beam ion sources (EBIS), obtaining highly charged ions up to Xe+46 in laboratory experiments and a design capability of U+90.Measurement of instabilities and ion heating in an electron beam ion source, M. A. Levine, R. E. Marrs, and R. W. Schmieder, Nucl. Instrum. Methods A237, 429 (1985).Proc. Third International EBIS Workshop, V. O. Kostroun and R. W. Schmieder, Eds., Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, (1985).Distributions of ions in axisymmetric traps, R. W. Schmieder, Proc. Workshop Appl. Sources of High Charge State Ions, Argonne (1986).Exact classical model of distributions of ions in collisionally evolving axisymmetric traps, R. W. Schmieder, Physica Scripta T22, 312 (1988).Heating and cooling of ions in the EBIS: Monte Carlo Calculations, R. W. Schmieder and C. L. Bisson, Int'l Symp. EBIS and Applic., Brookhaven (1988).Enhanced secondary ion yield from high charge state ions incident on a metal surface, R. W. Schmieder and R. J. Bastasz, Nucl. Instrum. Methods B43, 318 (1989).Physics of the EBIS and its ions, R. W. Schmieder, chapter in: Physics of Highly Ionized Atoms, R. Marrus, Ed., (Plenum, 1989).Enhanced performance of the LBL/SNLL Leaky EBIS: Evidence for cooling of trapped heavy ions, R. W. Schmieder and C. L. Bisson, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61, 256 (1990).Sandia Super-EBIS, R. W. Schmieder, C. L. Bisson, S. Haney, N. Toly, A. R. Van Hook, and J. Weeks, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61, 259 (1990).Quightness: A proposed figure-of-merit for sources of low-energy, high-charge-state ions, R. W. Schmieder, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61, 1101 (1990).Ion optical and beam energy properties of the electron beam ion source, R. W. Schmieder, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61, 1104 (1990). During the early 1990s, he was Principal Investigator of a team that developed an advanced model and simulation code for the plasma color video display, part of a national initiative that produced the current flat-panel display.Particle simulation of a narrow-gap symmetric Malter diode, R. W. Schmieder, R. T. McGrath, and R. T. Campbell, Bull. Amer. Phys. Soc. 37(9), 16–20 March 1992.Color plasma display panel. During 1991–93, R. W. Schmieder was PI for a CRADA (Cooperative Research and Development Agreement) with DOE, to develop models and software for simulating the behavior of flat color video display panels. Sandia National Laboratory Reports [list omitted]. He also developed a new model of collective dynamics of minimally cognitive populations, and applied it to various dynamical systems, including biological populations and artificial life.Simulating living organisms with populations of point vortices, R. W. Schmieder, Sandia National Laboratories Report SAND8527 (1995).Metastable states and intermittent switching of small populations of confined point vortices, R. W. Schmieder, Sandia National Laboratories Report SAND95-8488 (1995).Population dynamics of minimally cognitive individuals. Part I: Introducing Knowledge Into the Dynamics, R. W. Schmieder, Sandia National Laboratories Report SAND8505 (1995).Population dynamics of minimally cognitive individuals. Part II: Dynamics of time-dependent knowledge, R. W. Schmieder, Sandia National Laboratories Report SAND8489 (1995).