Jacek K. Furdyna is a Polish American physicist and academic. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. Furdyna is most known for his publications in condensed matter physics, and particularly for his research on elemental and compound semiconductors, in which he explored various electromagnetic phenomena, including magnetoplasma effects such as helicon wave propagation, magneto-optics, various forms of magnetism that are achieved by combining semiconductors with magnetic ions, and behavior of semiconductor nanostructures, such as quantum wells, quantum dots, nanowires, superlattices, and others. He has co-edited several books, including Diluted Magnetic (Semimagnetic) Semiconductors, and Chalcogenide: From 3D to 2D and beyond. In recognition of his research, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by University of Warsaw and Purdue University, as well as The Nicholas Copernicus Medal from the Polish Academy of Sciences for his significant contributions in designing and developing novel semiconductor materials, including magnetic semiconductors intended to perform advanced functions in computer technology. Furdyna is Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at Notre Dame, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Early life and education Furdyna was born on September 6, 1933, in Kamionka Strumilowa, Poland (now Kamianka Buzka, Ukraine). After invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union in 1939 at the outset of World War II, he was deported to Siberia with his mother, while his father was taken to the Gulag north of the Polar Circle. When war broke out between Nazi Germany and USSR, Polish deportees (including him among them) were formally "amnestied", and in 1942 many of them were able to evacuate from the Soviet Union through Uzbekistan to Iran, where he started attending elementary school in Teheran. He then traveled through Iraq, with short stays in Baghdad and Kirkuk, to (then) Palestine, where he was able to continue his education. In 1947 he and his mother joined his father in the United Kingdom, and at the age of 15 he immigrated with his parents to the United States, settling in Chicago in 1948. Furdyna earned his BS degree in Physics from Loyola University Chicago in 1955, followed by his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1960 under the supervision of Sybrand Broersma. The title of his doctoral thesis was "Faraday Effect in Silicon and Germanium".
Career After earning his Ph.D. in experimental solid-state physics, Furdyna spent two years as postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern's Department of Electrical Engineering before joining the staff of the M.I.T. Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory from 1962 to 1966. He then joined the Physics Department at Purdue University in 1966 as associate professor, and was promoted to Professor of Physics in 1972. His other notable appointments include being the National Academy of Sciences Exchange Scholar at the Institute of Physics of Polish Academy of Sciences and at Warsaw University from 1972 to 1973, a Visiting Scholar at the National Research Council Canada in Ottawa in 1981, and the Director of the NSF Materials Research Laboratory at Purdue University from 1982 to 1985. He held an appointment as the Aurora and Thomas Marquez Chair of Information Theory and Computer Technology in the Department of Physics at the University of Notre Dame from 1987 until 2021, and has been a Professor Emeritus of Physics since that time.
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