Francis Bitter (22.07.1902-26.07.1967) was an American physicist and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was born in Weehawken. He graduated from Columbia University (1924). In 1930-34 he worked at the Westinghouse company and from 1934 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (professor from 1951).
His main work was in the field of magnetism. He was the first to observe (1931) the domain structure of a ferromagnet, by means of the powder-figure method he had developed. In 1939 he constructed a solenoid producing a steady magnetic field of up to 80,000 oersted, and he contributed to the creation of powerful magnets. In particular, he was the first (1936) to make effective use in a magnet of a ferromagnetic concentrator of magnetic flux, to design a coil with a high power density, and to build a continuously operating direct-current electromagnet of 10.0 T. He examined (1936-37) the distribution of the magnetic field in coils with iron screens. He developed (1938) the molecular field theory for antiferromagnets. He detected (1940) metamagnetism. Together with J. Brossel he developed (1952) the method of double radio-optical resonance.
The National Magnet Laboratory in Cambridge (Massachusetts) is named after Bitter.