Robert W. Hellwarth

1930 - 2021

December 10, 1930 - January 20, 2021
Robert W. Hellwarth, a professor of physics and electrical engineering for nearly 50 years at the University of Southern California, was happily immersed most of his life in advancing the fields of optics and quantum electronics, having made an early career mark in 1960 with "Q-switching," an invention that supercharged the usefulness of the laser by boosting its power a millionfold, opening the gates to the field of high-power lasers.

Hellwarth's last scientific paper, published shortly before his 88th birthday, was titled like his many others in a language that relatively few can understand: "Azimuthally polarized hollow beams in free space: Exact vector solutions to Maxwell's equations."

Hellwarth died of complications from Covid-19, at Providence St. John's Health Center, in Santa Monica, not far from his longtime home. He was 90.

Q-switched lasers have found applications in everything from tattoo removal to surgical procedures to metal cutting to the quest for laser-induced nuclear fusion, in which lasers are used to fuse the nuclei of atoms, a key to creating an abundant, carbon-free energy source, using isotopes of hydrogen, and without producing the radioactive waste of conventional nuclear fission. Laser fusion was long a favorite puzzle for Hellwarth, and major efforts to achieve nuclear fusion energy continue worldwide.

Hellwarth was, in many respects, an archetypical absent-minded professor, mustachioed and with requisite sartorial quirks, but also 6-foot-2 and athletic – a fun-loving mashup of Indiana Jones and "Doc" Emmett Brown, with an optimistic, self-effacing mien, and an easygoing kindness that Mr. Rogers would have admired.

Science was to him both job and hobby – "fun" was probably the word he most often used to characterize his esoteric work. But Hellwarth, known to anyone he met as Bob, had other hobbies, music perhaps topping the list. He had perfect pitch and could play virtually anything on the piano (or accordion or harmonica).

He once sat in on accordion – using the same instrument he'd had since childhood – with the Irish band the Pogues, in the 1990s, at a Los Angeles party. Two decades earlier, he mortified his teenage daughter by tootling on his harmonica while they waited in line for a movie. He was a strong skier well into his 60s, and always loved a good game of chess. A Warhol fan, Hellwarth once spotted the famed pop artist and had him sign a can of Campbell's tomato soup. His car of choice, in auto-obsessed LA, was a VW bus.

Hellwarth attended public schools growing up in Detroit, was class valedictorian at Princeton, in 1952, and then a Rhodes Scholar, earning his doctorate in physics at Oxford, in 1955. He then landed a job at Hughes Aircraft Company and a simultaneous postdoc at nearby Caltech, where he met the renowned quantum theorist and future Nobel-prize winner Richard Feynman, who became a friend and mentor, and was best man at Hellwarth's second wedding, in 1985.

Survivors are Hellwarth's wife, Theresia de Vroom, and their son, William, of Los Angeles; the three children from his first marriage, to Abby Gurfein Hellwarth, who also survives him, Ben, of Santa Monica; Margaret, of San Diego; and Tom, of Bend, Oregon; and four grandchildren: Sutter, Camryn, Grace, and Evan.

In Bob Hellwarth's spirit of global cooperation, peace, problem solving, and kindness, donations may be made to Doctors Without Borders.