Science & invention
Emmett Leith
1927–2005 · electrical engineer, physicist
Detroit-born co-inventor of three-dimensional laser holography, who studied at Wayne State and did his pioneering work at the University of Michigan's Willow Run Laboratories.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Ann Arbor, Michigan
aged 78- Birth name
- Emmett Norman Leith
- Also known as
- Emmett N. Leith
- Detroit years
- 1927–2005
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Leith was born in Detroit in 1927 and studied physics at Wayne State University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1949 and a master's in 1952. That year he joined the radar laboratory of the University of Michigan's Willow Run Laboratories near Ypsilanti, where he worked on synthetic aperture radar and on processing radar data with light. That optical work led him to holography, an idea proposed by Dennis Gabor that had been held back by the lack of a suitable light source. Using the newly invented laser and an off-axis reference beam, Leith and Juris Upatnieks made the first true three-dimensional holograms, which stunned a 1964 meeting of the Optical Society of America. He spent his career at the University of Michigan, rising to full professor of electrical engineering, and in 1978 he completed a doctorate at Wayne State. He died in Ann Arbor in 2005.
Highlights
- Co-inventor, with Juris Upatnieks, of three-dimensional laser holography (1962–1964)
- Pioneer of optical processing for synthetic aperture radar at Willow Run Laboratories
- Wayne State University: BS 1949, MS 1952, PhD 1978
- National Medal of Science, 1979
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1940s–1952; 1978
Wayne State University
He took his physics degrees here and, decades later, a doctorate in electrical engineering.
Worked here · 1952–2005
University of Michigan
He spent his whole career with the university, first at Willow Run Laboratories and then as a professor of electrical engineering.