André Maréchal

Physicist, Award Winner

1916 – 2007

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Who was André Maréchal?

Robert Gaston André Maréchal was a French researcher and administrator in optics.

André Maréchal, an OSA Honorary Member and Fellow and former director general of the French Institut d’Optique. Maréchal received the [OSA]’s highest honor, in 1986, for his work in the areas of coherence, diffraction, geometric optics, image formation and image processing, and for his contributions to the international optics community. His pioneering work influenced the development of computer programs that optimized lens designs and advanced the automatic optimization of optical systems. He strongly contributed to the promotion of Fourier optics and analog optical computing.

Maréchal graduated from the École normale supérieure in 1941, and received his engineer's degree from SupOptique in 1943. He received a doctor of science degree in engineering from the University of Paris in 1948. For his thesis research, he investigated the combined effects of diffraction and aberrations and derived what is now known as the Maréchal criterion. Formally, that a wavefront can be regarded as diffraction-limited if its RMS phase error is 14 times less than its wavelength.

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Born
Dec 10, 1916
Also known as
  • Andre Marechal
Nationality
  • France
Profession
Education
  • École Normale Supérieure
  • University of Paris
Died
Oct 14, 2007

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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