Irving Langmuir
Name in native script: Irving Langmuir
1881–1957, Brooklyn, New York, United States, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States
American physical chemist and engineer whose studies of gas adsorption, monomolecular films, and electrical discharges led to the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Langmuir was born in Brooklyn, New York, studied metallurgical engineering at Columbia University, and earned a doctorate in physical chemistry at Göttingen. From 1909 he worked at General Electric's research laboratory in Schenectady, investigating incandescent lamps, vacuum technology, and electron emission.
He developed the Langmuir model of molecular adsorption on surfaces and investigated monomolecular films on water, helping establish modern surface science. The 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry.
Nobel-winning work
Langmuir received the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 'for his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry'. He showed that gases adsorb on solids as monomolecular layers, deriving the Langmuir adsorption isotherm (1916–1918). His studies of adsorbed films founded modern surface science and influenced catalysis, vacuum technology (gas-filled lamps) and plasma physics — he coined the term 'plasma' (1928).
Workplaces: General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, Stevens Institute of Technology
United States