(1929–    ), Norwegian-American physicist and Nobel laureate. Born in Bergen, Norway, he was educated at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim and in the U.S. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, N.Y. His first degree was in mechanical engineering; after army service and a brief period as a patent examiner, Giaever emigrated (1954) to Canada, where he worked at General Electric Co. (GE) as an engineer. In 1956 he transferred to GE's research and development center in Schenectady, N.Y., working as an applied mathematician until 1958, when he joined a solid-state physics research group. At the same time he studied physics at RPI, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1964. In that same year Giaever became a U.S. citizen. In 1969–70 he was in England on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study biophysics at the University of Cambridge. In 1988 he concurrently became a professor at RPI and at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Most of Giaever's work from 1958 to 1969 was in solid state physics (see Solid-State Physics.), mainly in SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, (q.v.). He conducted research on the electrical behavior of junctions in metal contacts separated by very thin insulating layers. Applying early tunneling research by the Japanese physicist Leo Esaki, he demonstrated that radiated electrons can tunnel through what is called a sandwich—an insulated piece with metal either in superconducting state on both sides or in superconducting state on one side and in normal state on the other side. This experiment proved the existence of the so-called energy gap in a superconductor. Later Giaever refined this method for use in spectroscopic analysis of the properties of superconductors. Giaever's work formed a foundation for the research of the British physicist Brian D. Josephson that resulted in his discovery of the JOSEPHSON EFFECT, (q.v.). After 1970, Giaever did research in biophysics. He made contributions to the study of immunology (see IMMUNE SYSTEM,) and to the knowledge of the behavior of protein molecules at solid surfaces.

Giaever, Esaki, and Josephson shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics “for their discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in solids.”