Robert Lee Armstrong
About Optica
In Memoriam: Robert Lee Armstrong,
09 May 2024
Optica Fellow Robert Lee Armstrong has passed away. He was best known for his research in optics, lasers and masers, radiofrequency wave propagation, carbon dioxide, absorption spectra, infrared spectra, and pressure effects.
From 1978 to 1981, Armstrong conducted research in the Physics Department of New Mexico State University on a High Resolution Atmospheric Transmittance Study funded by a grant from the US Army Research Office (ARO). The study culminated in a paper published in Applied Optics titled “Line Mixing in the v2 -Band of CO2.” In 1999, the Head of the Physics Department at New Mexico State University awarded Armstrong the George W. Gardiner Professorship in Physics in recognition of his excellence in scholarship, leadership, research, and teaching. He received funding through 2001. Additional research funded by an ARO grant focused on Light Control in Fractal Nanoparticles. It resulted in publications in journals such as the Journal of Nonlinear Optical Physics and Materials and the Journal of the Optical Society and presentations at major conferences such as the Annual Physics of Quantum Electronics (PQE).
In addition to his Professorship, Armstrong was named a Fellow by Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America) in 1991 for his “contributions to nonlinear spectroscopy of aerosols, and to the understanding of the physics of aerosol response to irradiation with intense laser pulses.”
Optica and the scientific community mourn his loss.
