Owen Willans Richardson (1879–1959)

Owen Willans Richardson studied thermionic emission, the release of electrons from a heated surface. In the ideal Richardson form, the emitted current density is $J=A{T}^2{e}^{-W/(k_{B}T)}$, where $W$ is a work function, $T$ is temperature and $A$ is an appropriate prefactor. A plot of $\log (J/T^2)$ against $1/T$ has slope $-W/k_B$ under the model's surface and collection assumptions. This turns a strong temperature dependence into a way to infer the electronic escape barrier.^[ref]

Physics.^[ref]