John Newton Dodd (19 April 1922 – 20 May 2005) was a New Zealand physicist who worked in the field of atomic spectroscopy.
[3] Dodd attended the University of Otago, graduating with a master's degree with first-class honours in 1946.
[1] While on leave in Oxford in 1959–1960, he worked with George Series who was applying techniques developed by Alfred Kastler's research group in Paris to demonstrate that radiation from a coherent superposition of excited states of atoms would display interference effects, known as quantum beats, and together they developed the theoretical explanation for the phenomenon.
[9] In 1976, he won the society's Hector Medal, at that time the highest prize in New Zealand science.
[3] The Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, a New Zealand Centre of Research excellence based in the University of Otago, was named after Jack Dodd and Dan Walls in recognition of their pioneering roles in establishing New Zealand's internationally recognised standing in photonics, quantum optics and ultra-cold atoms.