Michael Tinkham (born 23.02.1928) was an American physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1970). He was born near Ripon (Wisconsin). He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1951) and the University of Oxford. In 1955—66 he worked at the University of California at Berkeley (professor from 1961). From 1966 he was professor at Harvard University.
His research concerned quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, magnetism, nuclear magnetic resonance, the infrared spectroscopy of solids, low-temperature physics and superconductivity. In 1957 — 60 he gave direct proof of the existence of an energy gap in superconductors and showed how its presence makes it possible to explain the behaviour of the latter in a magnetic field.
He is widely known for his studies of the threshold absorption of far-infrared radiation in superconducting films, of the vortex state in thin films of superconductors, of superconducting microbridges, and of the Josephson effect in them.