Ugo Fano, Atomic Physicist, 1912-2001

University of Chicago Professor Emeritus Ugo Fano, whose pioneering contributions to the theory of atomic and radiation physics helped lead to the development of the gas laser and the use of radiation in medical diagnosis and therapy, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on Tuesday, Feb. 13, at a nursing home in Chicago. He was 88.

Fano dedicated much of his work to achieving a better understanding of the dynamics of atoms and molecules and the way they interact with light, electrons and each other. His influence in physics is reflected in the number of phenomena that bear his name: the “Beutler-Fano Profile,” the “Fano-Lichten Mechanism,” the “Fano Effect,” and the “Fano-Factor.”

“He was a foremost leader in theoretical atomic physics, and not just the United States, but all over the world,” said Mitio Inokuti, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

Inokuti noted that Fano began his career working with one of the 20th century’s greatest physicists, Enrico Fermi, at the University of Rome from 1934 to 1936. Fermi, a 1938 Nobel laureate in physics, led a group of scientists at the University of Chicago to produce the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in 1942.

“He maintained the tradition and style of Fermi physics,” said Inokuti, who just finished editing a special volume of the journal Physics Essays that is dedicated to Fano’s work. “He was not very much interested in abstract programs. He was always close to experimental facts and he was a great interpreter of many experimental facts. That he inherited from Enrico Fermi.”

So devoted was Fano to science that he typically greeted colleagues with “What’s new in physics?” rather than “good morning,” Inokuti said. And Fano kept in touch with them as a prolific writer of letters, and, later, e-mails to colleagues around the world. “This also, I think, is very much in Enrico Fermi’s tradition,” Inokuti said.

A prime example of Fano’s ability to analyze experimental data was the paper he wrote about the spectra–the distinctive electromagnetic radiation appearing at particular wavelengths– of the hydrogen molecule measured by Gerhard Herzberg, who would later receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Fano developed a novel theoretical description for hydrogen molecule spectra based on his analysis of another scientist’s pioneering work for atoms, said Anthony Starace, a professor of physics at the University of Nebraska.

“Fano’s analysis of the vastly more complex molecular spectra was theoretically beautiful and gave predictions in perfect accord with experimental measurements,” Starace said. Fano and a former student, Ravi Rau of Louisiana State University, subsequently developed the analysis into a book, Atomic Collisions and Spectra, published in 1986.

Fano earned a reputation among physicists for introducing unifying concepts and procedures that reduced apparently diverse and complex phenomena to a simple and practical description. His theoretical work became the underpinning of a wide range of practical results that developed naturally from his work.

For example, Fano contributed to understanding the basic physics that underlay the development of the gas laser, a now common tool of all the physical and biological sciences. The design and development of such lasers required detailed knowledge of a variety of basic atomic and molecular properties that Fano’s work helped to provide.

His publications regarding the interaction of radiation with matter are related to biological radiation effects, which form the basis for many diagnostic and therapeutic applications in clinical settings.

Fano came to the University of Chicago in 1966 as a Professor in Physics and the James Franck Institute. He served as Chairman of the Physics Department from 1972 to 1974. He produced approximately 30 Ph.D. students, most of who currently serve as faculty members active in atomic physics. These include Rau and Starace, who both received their Ph.D.s in 1971.

“In this way his way of doing physics lives on,” Starace said.

Fano was born in Torino, Italy, on July 28, 1912. He earned his doctoral degree in mathematics from the University of Torino in 1934, then began working with Enrico Fermi.

“Fermi and his group were brilliant young people totally absorbed in their work but also full of fun," Fano wrote in his last article, which will be published next month in Physics Essays. "They were a tight little society, organizing with their girls and peripheral friends all sorts of skiing and outing trips, given to pranks and sparkling conversation, and they accepted me as a very junior partner.”

From 1936 to 1937, Fano worked with another great 20th century physicist, Werner Heisenberg, at the University of Leipzig. Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize in 1932 for developing the uncertainty principle, which states that it is impossible to obtain an accurate simultaneous measurement of both the position and momentum of any subatomic object.

Fano returned to the University of Rome as a lecturer in 1938, but fled with his family to the United States in 1939 to escape fascist Italy. He worked at the Washington Biophysical Institute, the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory from 1939 to 1945, and at the National Bureau of Standards from 1946 to 1966.

Fano received the Enrico Fermi Award from President Clinton in a White House ceremony in 1996. He also was elected as a foreign member to the Royal Society of London in 1995, and to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1993. Other honors include the U.S. Department of Commerce Award in 1968, the Stratton Award of the National Bureau of Standards in 1963, the Gold Medal of the Department of Commerce for Exceptional Service in 1957, and the Rockefeller Public Service Award in 1956. He also received honorary degrees from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris in 1979, and from Queen’s University in Belfast in 1978.

Fano is survived by his wife of 62 years, Camilla Lattes Fano of Chicago; two daughters, Mary Giacomoni, of Chicago, and Virginia Fano Ghattas of Wellesley, Mass.; four grandchildren, John Anthony Giacomoni and Carlo Giacomoni, both of Urbana, Ill.; and Tamara Ghattas, a second-year student at the University of Chicago; and Peter Ghattas of Wellesley, Mass.; and a brother, Robert Fano, of Concord, Mass.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 5, in the Max Palevsky Cinema at Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th St.