Georges Nomarski

Georges Nomarski was a Polish physicist and optics theoretician who immigrated to France after World War II. He studied at the Warsaw University of Technology and the Ecole Supérieure d'Optique Paris. He established the Laboratoire de Microscopie Optique de L'Institut d'Optique and became a professor of microscopy and head of the department. He also worked at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as a director of research. He is best known for his invention of differential interference contrast microscopy, a technique that allows the visualization of optical gradients in transparent specimens. He also designed the Nomarski prism, a device that splits a beam of light into two orthogonal polarized beams. He received many honors and awards for his contributions to the field of optics, such as the Abbe Medal, the SPIE Gold Medal, and the fellowship of the Optical Society of America and the Royal Microscopical Society. He died in 1997 at the age of 78.