Bloembergen, Nicolaas (1920-...), a Dutch-born American physicist, achieved acclaim for his investigations of phenomena that can only be detected with lasers, and for his explorations of how electromagnetic radiation interacts with matter. In 1981, he shared the Nobel Prize for physics with American Arthur L. Schawlow for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy, the use of laser beams to obtain detailed information about molecular structure.