Elias Burstein (September 30, 1917 – June 17, 2017) was an American experimental condensed matter physicist whose active career in science spanned seven decades. He is known for his pioneering fundamental research in the optical physics of solids; for writing and editing hundreds of articles and other publications; for bringing together scientists from around the world in international meetings, conferences, and symposia; and for training and mentoring dozens of younger physicists.“A Tribute to Elias Burstein.” Gerald Burns, Solid State Communications volume 58, no. 1, pp ix-x. (April 1986)
Education
Burstein earned a BA degree in chemistry from Brooklyn College (1938) and an MA degree in chemistry from the University of Kansas (1941). He took graduate courses in chemistry and physics at MIT (1941–43) and in physics at Catholic University (1946–48). His doctoral studies were interrupted by the war in 1945, when he went to work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. Although he did not earn a PhD degree, he received four honorary doctorates (see Honors).
Positions
Burstein was a member of the physics section of the crystal branch at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (1945–58), later head of that branch (1948-1958), and thereafter head of the semiconductors branch (1958).
In 1958 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1982 he succeeded Nobel Laureate John Robert Schrieffer as Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics. He retired as a member of the standing faculty in 1988, but has remained active as Mary Amanda Wood Professor Emeritus.
He held visiting professorships at the University of California, Irvine (1967–68), at the Hebrew University in Israel (1974), at the University of Parma in Italy (1974); was the Fiftieth Anniversary Jubilee Visiting Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden (1981); and was Miller Visiting Research Professor in the department of physics at the University of California, Berkeley (1996).
Among his numerous professional roles, he was a member of the Solid State Sciences Committee of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (1971–80) and served as its Chairman (1976–78). He was a member of the Arts and Sciences Committee of the Franklin Institute starting in 1995.
Professional accomplishments
During his career Burstein trained more than thirty-five PhD students in physics as well as five postdoctoral research associates. He published over 200 papers and has two patents for impurity-doped silicon and germanium infrared photo-detectors. He also initiated and organized many international conferences, bringing together physicists from all over the globe to share the results of their research and theoretical work, and to confer with each other.
He was the founding editor of Solid State Communications (Pergamon Press) and its editor-in-chief (1963–92). In that capacity he was instrumental in establishing its editorial and publication policies, including granting each editor on its International Board of Editors full authority to accept or reject contributions. He has been co-editor of Comments on Condensed Matter Physics (Gordon and Breach) (1971-1981), and is Founding Editor and Co-Editor with Marvin Cohen, Douglas Mills, and Phillip J. Stiles of the series of volumes Contemporary Concepts of Condensed Matter Science, published by Elsevier.
Burstein along with Robert Hughes of the chemistry department and Robert Madden of the metallurgy department (both at the University of Pennsylvania), were the principal originators of the proposal to establish a laboratory for fundamental research on materials at the university. This led to the founding of the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM) at the University of Pennsylvania in 1961.
Principal areas of scientific research
Burstein's pioneering scientific achievements have had a major impact on the understanding of fundamental optical phenomena that are exhibited by condensed matter. His early work with diamond-structure crystals and with rock salt and zincblende type crystals at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) elucidated their infrared properties, explaining the mechanisms of second-order infrared absorption by long wavelength lattice vibrations in terms of electrical and mechanical anharmonicity.“The Infrared Properties of Diamond, Silicon and Germanium”, E. Burstein and J.J. Oberly, Phys. Rev. 78, 642 (1950).Infrared Lattice Absorption in Ionic and Homopolar Crystals,” Melvin Lax and Elias Burstein, Physical Review vol 97 no 1, 39 (1955) His fundamental studies of infrared photoconductivity due to the photoionization of impurities in silicon and germanium at liquid helium temperature“Infrared Photoconductivity Due to Neutral Impurities in Silicon”, E. Burstein, J.J. Oberly and J.W. Davisson, Phys. Rev. 89, 331 (1953).“Infrared Photoconductivity Due to Neutral Impurities in Germanium”, E. Burstein, J.W. Davisson, E.E. Bell, W.J. Turner and H.G. Lipson, Phys. Rev. 93, 65 (1954). provided the foundation for the development of impurity-doped silicon and germanium infrared detectors. The 1954 paper that has become his most-cited publication“Anomalous Optical Absorption Limit in InSb”, E. Burstein, Phys. Rev. 93, 632 (1954). explained an "anomalous shift" of the interband optical absorption edge of InSb to higher energies that had been reported by researchers at Bell Labs."Optical Properties of Indium Antimonide". Physical Review, vol.91, no.6, 1561.Tannenbaum, M; Briggs, H.B. (1953). The shift results from the conservation of wave vector in optical interband transitions when the Pauli exclusion principle forbids transitions to carrier-occupied states in the conduction or valence band. In later work at NRL, Burstein and his collaborators used low temperature absorption spectra to study the excited states of shallow impurities in silicon and detected deviations from the existing theoretical models."Absorption Spectra of Impurities in Silicon-I. Group-III Acceptors," E. Burstein, G.S. Picus, B. Henvis and R. F. Wallis, Journal of the Physics and Chemistry of Solids 1, 65 (1956)."Absorption Spectra of Impurities in Silicon-II. Group-V Donors," G.S. Picus, E. Burstein and B. Henvis, Journal of the Physics and Chemistry of Solids 10, 75 (1956). In other work, they investigated interband magneto-optical transitions in semiconductors,“Interband Magneto-Optic Effect in Semiconductors”, E. Burstein and G.S. Picus, Phys. Rev.105, 1123 (1957).“Zeeman Type Magneto-Optic Studies of Interband Transitions in Semiconductors”, E. Burstein, G.S. Picus, R.F. Wallis and F. Blatt, Phys. Rev. 113, 15 (1959). and formulated the theory of the phenomenon in terms of interband transitions between Landau subbands. They also reported the first observation of cyclotron resonance of electrons in InSb at room temperature at frequencies in the infrared,“Cyclotron Resonance at Infrared Frequencies in InSb at Room Temperature”, E. Burstein, G.S. Picus and H.A. Gebbie, Phys. Rev. 103, 825 (1956). and explained this quantum mechanically as corresponding to intraband optical transitions between discrete Landau levels within the valence or conduction bands."Investigations of Cyclotron Resonance in InSb and PbTe: Intraband Transitions between Landau Levels," Elias Burstein in The Symposium of the 50th Anniversary of Cyclotron Resonance in Semiconductors of the 27th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors, Flagstaff, AZ edited by Jose Menendez and Chris G. Van de Walle, American Institute of Physics, 2005, p. 17-22.
At the University of Pennsylvania, Burstein and his graduate students continued ground-breaking research on semiconductors, insulators, metals, and two-dimensional electron plasmas in semiconductors, contributing to the understanding of the optical behavior of solid state materials. Burstein was one of the first to use lasers to do fundamental research on semiconductors and insulators, and he played an integral role in determining the mechanisms underlying inelastic light (Raman) scattering phenomena and the conditions for their observation. He and his students observed that an applied electric field induced normally forbidden infrared absorption by long wavelength optical lattice vibrations in diamond structure crystals.“A Method for Determining the Magnitude of the Raman Scattering Matrix Element for Diamond-Type Crystals”, E.Burstein and S. Ganesan, Le Journal de Physique 26, 637 (1965).“Electric-Field Induced Infrared Absorption and Raman Scattering in Diamond”, E. Anastassakis and E. Burstein, Phys. Rev. B vol 2, 1952 (1970).“Electric Field Induced Infrared Absorption and Raman Scattering by Optical Phonons in Centrosymmetric Crystals”, E. Burstein, A.A. Maradudin, E. Anastassakisand A. Pinczuk, Helvetia Physica Acta, 41 730 (1968). This phenomenon was attributed to the creation of an oscillating electric moment that couples to the electromagnetic radiation. Further work lead to the investigation of the role of surface space charge electric fields and associated band-bending in inducing an otherwise forbidden Raman scattering by longitudinal optical vibration modes in InSb.“Raman Scattering from InSb Surfaces at Photon Energies Near the E1 Energy Gap”, A. Pinczuk and E. Burstein, Phys. Rev. Lett. 21, 1073 (1968).“Resonance-Enhanced Electric Field Induced Raman Scattering by LO Phonons inInSb”, A. Pinczuk and E.Burstein, Proc. 1968 Int. Conf. on Light Scattering Spectra of Solids (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1969), p. 429.“Resonant Raman Scattering at the E1 Energy Gap of Semiconductor Crystals”, A.Pinczuk and E. Burstein, Surface Science 37, 153 (1973). This phenomenon was used as a spectroscopic probe of band-bending at PbTe and SnSe surfaces and to determine the dependence of the band-bending on surface orientation.“Surface Electric Field Induced Raman Scattering in PbTe and SnTe”, L. Brillson and E. Burstein, Physical Review Letters 27, 808 (1971).“Raman Scattering at the (111) and (111) Surfaces of n- and p-InAs”, S. Buchner, L.Y. Ching and E. Burstein, Phys. Rev. 14, 4459 (1976).