Jan Tauc

Jan Tauc (/taʊts/; 15 April 1922 – 28 December 2010)

was a Czech-American physicist who introduced the Jan Tauc
concepts of Tauc gap and Tauc plot to the optical
characterization of solids. Born in Bohemia, he
emigrated to the United States in 1969, where he
received citizenship in 1978,[1] and worked for the rest
of his life.

Biography
Tauc was born in Pardubice, Bohemia (now in the
Czech Republic). Ten year later, his father, a post-
office accountant, was transferred to Opava. In 1938,
the region was annexed by Germany, and all Czech Born 15 April 1922
citizens were expelled within hours. The Tauc family Pardubice, Czechoslovakia
eventually settled in Brno, where Jan graduated from a Died 28 December 2010 (aged 88)
high school. He spent one of his high school years in Washougal, Washington, United
Nîmes, France, on a three-year scholarship that was States
interrupted by World War II.[2] During the war, Tauc
Nationality Czech (until 1978) American
attended a technical school while working at a
(from 1978)
weapons factory and studying physics independently.
Alma mater Czech Technical University in
Within a few years after the war he obtained a
Prague
university degree in electrical engineering. In 1949 he
defended a PhD on dielectric antennas at the Czech Known for Tauc plot
Technical University in Prague. He then became Tauc–Lorentz model
interested in semiconductor physics and built the first Awards Frank Isakson Prize for Optical
point-contact transistor in Czechoslovakia.[3] In 1952 Effects in Solids (1982)
he became the head of the semiconductor department David Adler Lectureship Award
at the Institute of Technical Physics of the newly (1988)
established Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In Scientific career
1956 he defended his habilitation on electromotive
Fields Semiconductor physics
forces in semiconductors,[4] and between 1964 and
1969 worked as professor of experimental physics at Institutions Czech Technical University in
the Charles University in Prague. While attending the Prague (1952–1969)
fourth International Conference on the Physics of Charles University in Prague
Semiconductors in Rochester, New York, he convinced (1964–1969)
the organizers to choose Prague for the next meeting in Bell Labs (1969–1970)
1960, in which he acted as a local chair. This was the Brown University (1970–1992)
first such event in a Soviet bloc country.[5][6][7]
While Tauc's early work mainly concerned photovoltaic, thermoelectric and optical properties of
crystalline semiconductors, in the mid-1960s he focused on amorphous semiconductors, in particular
hydrogenated silicon, which became his major research topic until retirement. In 1966 he published an
article on the electronic and optical properties of amorphous germanium that laid the foundation for semi-
empirical studies of amorphous materials and introduced the concepts of the Tauc gap and the Tauc
plot.[5][6][8]

In early 1969, soon after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Tauc left the country. After spending a
few months at the University of Paris he moved with his family to Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey,
United States, for a 12-month fellowship. He remained a long-term consultant for Bell Labs after that. In
October 1969, when the Czech Academy of Sciences annulled his sabbatical leave and requested his
return, Tauc refused and accepted a position of professor of engineering and physics at the Brown
University, Rhode Island, which he held until his retirement in 1992. Because of this decision he received
a jail sentence in Czechoslovakia that prevented him from visiting the country for decades into the
future.[9] At Brown University, he co-authored a patent for a method of characterizing thin films using
transient photomodulation spectroscopy.[10] He also wrote several books, served as an editor of three
journals, and was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. His awards included the
1982 Frank Isakson Prize and the 1988 David Adler Lectureship Award of the American Physical
Society.[5][6] In 2003, long after the fall of the Communist regime, he received the De Scientia et
Humanitate Optime Meritis medal, the highest award for a scientist in Czech Republic.[11]

In 1947, Tauc married Vera Koubelova, who died in 2008. They had a daughter, Elena (born 1951), and a
son, Jan (born 1954).[3][6] His younger brother Ladislav Tauc (1926–1999) was a famous neuroscientist, a
pioneer in neuroethology and neuronal physiology.[11] Ladislav immigrated to France in 1949 and
became a French citizen, whereas Jan received American citizenship in 1978. Jan was a long-term friend
and colleague of Manuel Cardona, who, among other things, persuaded him to accept the position at
Brown University in 1970.[1]

Books
Jan Tauc (1962). Photo and thermoelectric effects in semiconductors (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=aCVRAAAAMAAJ). Pergamon Press. ISBN 978-0-08-013636-3.
Jan Tauc (1974). Amorphous and liquid semiconductors (https://books.google.com/books?id
=AiNRAAAAMAAJ). Plenum. ISBN 978-0-306-30777-5.
Phillip J. Stiles; Jan Tauc (1976). Optical Studies of Bonding in Solids (https://books.google.
com/books?id=_WAfOAAACAAJ). Defense Technical Information Center.
Jan Tauc (1980). Electronic Structure and Stability of Metallic Glasses (https://books.google.
com/books?id=lOceOAAACAAJ). Defense Technical Information Center.

References
1. Cardona, 15–16
2. Cardona, 4
3. Cardona, 5
4. Cardona, 8
 5. Manuel Cardona; Sidney Nagel; Richard Zallen; Karel Závěta (2011). "Jan Tauc" (https://doi.
org/10.1063%2FPT.3.1177). Physics Today. 64 (7): 64. Bibcode:2011PhT....64g..64C (http
s://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011PhT....64g..64C). doi:10.1063/PT.3.1177 (https://doi.org/
10.1063%2FPT.3.1177).
6. B. Velický. Jan Tauc passed away (http://www.fzu.cz/en/jan-tauc-passed-away) Archived (htt
ps://web.archive.org/web/20111212173138/http://fzu.cz/en/jan-tauc-passed-away) 2011-12-
12 at the Wayback Machine. Czech Academy of Sciences
7. Cardona, 9
8. Tauc, J.; Grigorovici, R.; Vancu, A. (1966). "Optical Properties and Electronic Structure of
Amorphous Germanium" (https://doklady.belnauka.by/jour/article/view/554). Physica Status
Solidi B. 15 (2): 627. Bibcode:1966PSSBR..15..627T (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/196
6PSSBR..15..627T). doi:10.1002/pssb.19660150224 (https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fpssb.1966
0150224). This article has received ca. 2400 citations in Web of Science as of October 2014
9. Cardona, 15–16, 18
10. Jan Tauc, Humphrey J. Maris, Christian Thomsen "Optical generator and detector of stress
pulses" U.S. patent 4,710,030 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4710030) Issue date:
December 1, 1987
11. Cardona, 19

External links
Manuel Cardona, Sidney Nagel, Richard Zallen and Karel Zaveta, "Jan Tauc", Biographical
Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2011) (http://www.nasonline.org/publication
s/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/tauc-jan.pdf)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Tauc&oldid=1258507578"