obituary Mark Stockman, the knight of plasmonics When the nanophotonics research community fnally gets back to in-person conferences, the rooms will have empty chairs on the frst row. The chairs will be reserved for Professor Mark I. Stockman. ark Stockman, one of the founding follow-up experimental research. members and pioneers of This paper took one of the first steps Mplasmonics and nanophotonics, towards quantum plasmonics, dealing passed away at the age of 73 on 11 with surface plasmon fields of a November 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. nanosystem, their quantization and Always at the front row of the conference stimulated emission. It demonstrated hall, nodding in agreement or shaking that spasers can generate temporally his head in disapproval, Mark will be coherent high-intensity fields of selected remembered not only for his breakthrough surface plasmon modes that can be studies, but also for his passion for strongly localized at the nanoscale, science and the uncompromising including dark modes that do not couple standards in research that he applied to to far-zone electromagnetic fields. From himself and others. At every conference his earlier works on random media and session, the speakers would be nervously fractals, Mark became interested in waiting, with the audience, for Mark’s generation manipulation of light at the insightful questions. nanoscale, including the generation of Mark Stockman was born in Kharkiv, plasmon-polaritons by free-electron impact. Ukraine, on 21 July 1947. He was descended He introduced plasmonic concentrators from a family of military cantonists. The based on a self-similar linear chain of term was applied to Jewish boys who several metal nanospheres2 and adiabatic were drafted to military service at the age taper3, where Mark predicted theoretically of twelve and placed for their six-year that surface plasmon-polaritons military education in cantonist schools. Mark Stockman on 19 November 2014, at propagating toward the tip of a tapered The official policy was to encourage their a Purdue University Excellence in Research plasmonic waveguide are slowed down conversion to the state religion of Orthodox Awards Dinner. Credit: John Underwood/Purdue and asymptotically stopped when they Christianity and Jewish boys were coerced University tend to the tip, never actually reaching it. to baptism. Mark believed that his ancestor This phenomenon, now widely used in was among a few who escaped conversion plasmonic research, causes accumulation and was proud of his Jewish extraction. As Buffalo, and then in 1991 he took a visiting of energy and giant local fields at the a symbol of his origin, Mark treasured an professorial post at the Washington State tip and has numerous applications in old daguerreotype image of his granddad University. Mark was appointed professor at nanophotonics and nanotechnology. Mark’s Gregory Ilich Stockman, a boy with a book the Department of Physics and Astronomy studies on ultrafast photonics, including in a gymnasium uniform standing next to at Georgia State University in 2001, where ultrafast active plasmonics and attosecond his mother, who was the wife of the original he became the founding director of the metrology, has provided access to several cantonist. Center for Nano Optics in 2012 and worked hitherto immeasurably fast electron Mark Stockman read physics at the until his last days. Mark travelled widely and phenomena in atoms, molecules and solids4. Kiev State University in Ukraine and the accepted guest professorial positions at the Regardless of the personalities involved, University of Novosibirsk in Russia, where Max Plank Institute for Quantum Optics Mark was happy to challenge scientific he obtained his MSc in 1970. He then in Garching bei München, the University concepts he did not agree with5,6, and keenly studied under the guidance of Professor of Stuttgart, Ecole Normale Supérieure de defended and promoted his own ideas of the Spartak Belyaev and Vladimir Zelevinsky Cachan and Ecole Supérieure de Physique spaser1, plasmonic taper3 and the ultrafast at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Russian et de Chimie Industrielle in Paris. He was topological all-optical gate7 (one of his last Academy of Sciences, in Novosibirsk, Russia, elected a Fellow of the American Physical papers), which he passionately believed and received his PhD in 1974. In 1989, he Society, Optical Society of America and can change technology. He earned the obtained a Doctor of Science in physics the International Society for Optical reputation of a theorist with a background, from the Institute of Automation and Engineering. He received numerous grants opinion and ideas spanning a very wide Electrometry, Russian Academy of Sciences, and contracts during his career, including range of subjects, from solid state physics to where he worked until 1989 on nonlinear those from the US Departments of Defense biomedicine. optics and laser biophysics. While he was and Energy. “I had a good life” — this was one a PhD candidate Mark met and married The theoretical prediction by Stockman of the last things Mark told his friends. Bronislava (Slava) Mezger, a junior research and Bergman of the spaser device (surface Not only did he have a vibrant, eventful scientist in biomedicine, and in 1978 they plasmon amplification by stimulated life full of accomplishments and joy had a son, Dmitry. emission of radiation), a plasmonic (his favourite hobby was skiing), but he In 1990 Mark Stockman moved to the version of the laser1, was one of the key also shared it with all of us. Mark Stockman, United States to take a research position discoveries in the field of plasmonics exceptional scientist and personality, at the State University of New York at that inspired 2,000 citations and massive will be dearly missed by his wife Slava, son NATURE PHOTONICS | VOL 15 | MAY 2021 | 321–322 | www.nature.com/naturephotonics 321 obituary Dmitry, friends and the nanophotonics IN, USA. 2Optoelectronics Research Centre, References community. ❐ University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. 1. Bergman, D. J. & Stockman, M. I. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 027402 (2003). 2. Li, K., Stockman, M. I. & Bergman, D. J. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 3 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 227402 (2003). 1 Alexandra Boltasseva ✉ , Singapore. 3. Stockman, M. I. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 137404 (2004). Vladimir M. Shalaev 1 and ✉e-mail: [email protected] 4. Krausz, F. & Stockman, M. I. Nat. Photon. 8, 205–213 (2014). 2,3 5. Stockman, M. I. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 177404 (2007). Nikolay. I. Zheludev 6. Javani, M. H. & Stockman, M. I. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 107404 1School of Electrical and Computer Published online: 7 April 2021 (2016). Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00799-7 7. Nematollahi, F. et al. Phys. Rev. B 102, 125413 (2020). 322 NATURE PHOTONICS | VOL 15 | MAY 2021 | 321–322 | www.nature.com/naturephotonics.