French physicist who was educated at the École Normale Supérieure (1902-1905) and received his
doctor ès-sc. physiques in 1909 under Mascart and Langevin. In 1906, Dunoyer wrote his first paper in
mathematics. In work related to his thesis, he invented the first electromagnetic compass (1907-1908), which was used
by Charles Lindbergh for the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 1927. Dunoyer was
subsequently a lecturer (1920), then professor, at the Institut d'Optique at the Sorbonne (1926-1939) and a physicist
at the Paris Observatory (from 1927). He was a student of Picard, and married Picard's
daughter in 1906.
Dunoyer is known for his inventiveness in physical instrumentation as well as his great experimental skill. He worked on
the measurement of magnetic fields, barometric pressure, and temperature, with applications in meteorology, shipping,
and aeronautics. He was the first to produce narrow molecular beams traveling through an evacuated cylinder (1911).
With Wood, he studied the resonance radiation of sodium vapor (1914). He also worked on optical instrumentation
(perfecting the photocell) and vacuum techniques (with applications in spectrometry and photometry). Poggendorff lists
more 150 papers by Dunoyer on these various topics.
Dunoyer, L. "Courbes de poursuite d'un cercle." Nouv. Ann. de Math. 6, 1906.
Dunoyer, L. "Papers on "compas électromagnétique." C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 145, 1907.
Dunoyer, L. "Papers on "compas électromagnétique." C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 147, 1908.
Dunoyer, L. "Papers on "compas électromagnétique." Thèse, Paris 1909.
Dunoyer, L. "Réalisation d'un rayonnement matériel d'origine purement thermique." J. du Radium 8, 1911.
Dunoyer, L. "Resonance optique de la vapeur de sodium sous l'action des raies D1 du sodium." C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 158,
1914.
Dunoyer, L. "Les gaz ultra-rarefiés. in Les idées modernes sur la constitution de la matière."
Paris: Gauthier-Villars, pp. 214-271, 1913.
Dunoyer, L. "La Technique du Vide." Journal de Physique, 1924.
Dunoyer, L. "Les cellules photoélectriques.' Rapport no. 36 du 2ème Congrès international d'électricité, Paris 1932.
Dunoyer, L. Les émissions électroniques des couches minces. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1932.
Dunoyer, L. Le vide et ses applications. Paris: PUF, 1950.
Poggendorff, vols. V, VI and VIIb.
Tarbès, P. "Obituary." Le Vide (Paris) 18, 345, 1963.
Wood, R. Physical Optics, 3rd ed. New York: MacMillan, 1934.
