Isaac David Abella (June 20, 1934 – October 23, 2016) was a Canadian-American physicist who was a professor at the University of Chicago.
Abella was known for his work with laser coherent transients, where photon echo techniques are used to probe metastable excited states in rare gas mixtures such as helium, neon, and argon.
The process is a radiationless, almost resonant transfer of energy between sites and depends on the relative concentrations of the rare earth ions.
In particular his experimental interests are measuring decay rates, excited state absorption, and branching ratios and detailed theories of such processes.
[3][4] He was married to Mary Ann Abella, Professor of Art, Chicago State University.