Katharine Burr Blodgett

Katharine Burr Blodgett, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007, was a groundbreaking physicist and inventor whose work significantly advanced the field of surface chemistry. As the first woman to earn a PhD in Physics from Cambridge University, Dr. Blodgett’s pioneering research led to the development of Langmuir-Blodgett films, a technique for creating ultrathin, layered films on solid surfaces. Dr. Blodgett’s most notable invention, the creation of non-reflecting glass, emerged from her application of the Langmuir-Blodgett technique to coat glass with multiple layers of barium stearate, reducing its reflectivity to near invisibility. Despite initial commercial challenges, her work laid the foundation for modern anti-reflective coatings used in various optical devices. Her innovations have had lasting impacts on optics and material science.