Herbert Kroemer

Herbert Kroemer
Kroemer in 2008
Born	(1928-08-25)August 25, 1928 Weimar, Thuringia, Germany
Died	March 8, 2024(2024-03-08) (aged 95)
Nationality	Germany United States (from 2003)
Alma mater	University of Jena University of Göttingen
Known for	Drift-field transistor Double-heterostructure laser Heterojunction bipolar transistor
Awards	J J Ebers Award (1973) Humboldt Research Award (1994) Nobel Prize in Physics (2000) IEEE Medal of Honor(2002)
Scientific career
Fields	Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics
Institutions	Fernmeldetechnisches Zentralamt RCA Laboratories Varian Associates University of Colorado University of California, Santa Barbara
Thesis	Zur Theorie des Germaniumgleichrichters und des Transistors : Ausz. Mit 10 Fig. im Text (1953)
Doctoral advisor	Fritz Sauter

Herbert Kroemer (German: [ˈhɛʁbɛʁt ˈkʁøːmɐ] ; August 25, 1928 – March 8, 2024) was a German-American physicist who, along with Zhores Alferov, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for "developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics". Kroemer was professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, having received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1952 from the University of Göttingen, Germany, with a dissertation on hot electron effects in the then-new transistor. His research into transistors was a stepping stone to the later development of mobile phone technologies.

Early life

Born to a working-class family in Weimar, Germany, Kroemer excelled in physics at school, letting him advance faster than his peers in the subject.

Career

Kroemer worked in a number of research laboratories in Germany and the United States and taught electrical engineering at the University of Colorado from 1968 to 1976. He joined the UCSB faculty in 1976, focusing its semiconductor research program on the emerging compound semiconductor technology rather than on mainstream silicon technology. Charles Kittel had published the successful Thermal Physics in 1969, and enlisted Kroemer to edit it for a second edition, which appeared in 1980.

He is also the author of the textbook Quantum Mechanics for Engineering, Materials Science and Applied Physics.

Kroemer was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 1997 for conception of the semiconductor heterostructure transistor and laser, and for leadership in semiconductor materials technology. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003.

Kroemer always preferred to work on problems that are ahead of mainstream technology, inventing the drift transistor in the 1950s and being the first to point out that advantages could be gained in various semiconductor devices by incorporating heterojunctions. Most notably, though, in 1963 he proposed the concept of the double-heterostructure laser, which is now a central concept in the field of semiconductor lasers. Kroemer became an early pioneer in molecular beam epitaxy, concentrating on applying the technology to untried new materials.

Personal life

Kroemer was an atheist. He died on March 8, 2024, at the age of 95.

Awards and honors

• J J Ebers Award (1973)
• Humboldt Research Award (1994)
• Nobel Prize in Physics (2000)
• Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2001)
• IEEE Medal of Honor (2002)

See also

• List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara

External links

• Quotations related to Herbert Kroemer at Wikiquote
• Not Just Blue Sky
• Herbert Kroemer on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture 8 December 2000 Quasi-Electric Fields and Band Offsets: Teaching Electrons New Tricks
• Personal Homepage UCSB Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine
• Freeview video Interview with Herbert Kroemer by the Vega Science Trust
• U.S. Patent 5067828 Transferred electron effective mass modulator (Herbert Kroemer)
• U.S. Patent 5013683 Method for growing tilted superlattices (Herbert Kroemer)
• Herb’s Bipolar Transistors IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 48, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2001 PDF
• Influence of Mobility and Lifetime Variations on Drift-Field Effects in Silicon-Junction Devices PDF
• Heterostructure Bipolar Transistors and Integrated Circuits PDF