Herbert Kroemer

Herbert Kroemer
Kroemer in 2008
Born	(1928-08-25)August 25, 1928 Weimar, Germany
Died	March 8, 2024(2024-03-08) (aged 95) Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Citizenship	Germany United States (nat. 2003)
Education	University of Göttingen (grad. 1951, 1952)
Known for	Drift-field transistor Heterojunction bipolar transistor
Awards	J. J. Ebers Award (1973) IEEE Jack A. Morton Award (1986) Nobel Prize in Physics (2000) IEEE Medal of Honor (2002)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Workplaces	University of Colorado Boulder University of California, Santa Barbara
Thesis	Zur Theorie des Germaniumgleichrichters und des Transistors : Ausz. Mit 10 Fig. im Text (1953)
Doctoral advisor	Richard Becker

Herbert Kroemer (German: [ˈhɛʁbɛʁt ˈkʁøːmɐ] ^ⓘ; August 25, 1928 – March 8, 2024) was a German–American physicist who, along with Zhores Alferov, received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics." His research into transistors was a stepping stone to the later development of mobile phone technologies.

Education

Herbert Kroemer was born on August 25, 1928, in Weimar, State of Thuringia. His father was a civil servant, while his mother was a housewife; neither of them had a high school education. Kroemer excelled in physics at school, letting him advance faster than his peers in the subject.

Kroemer received his Diplom in 1951, and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics the following year, both from the University of Göttingen. His doctoral thesis was on hot electron effects in the then-new transistor.

Career and research

From 1952 to 1968, Kroemer worked in a number of research laboratories in Germany and the United States. In 1968, he was appointed Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1976, focusing its semiconductor research program on the emerging compound semiconductor technology rather than on mainstream silicon technology.

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.

Charles Kittel had published the successful Thermal Physics in 1969, and enlisted Kroemer to edit it for a second edition, which appeared in 1980. Kroemer is also the author of the textbook Quantum Mechanics for Engineering, Materials Science and Applied Physics.

Kroemer retired from UC Santa Barbara in 2012.

Personal life

Kroemer was an atheist. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2003. He died on March 8, 2024, in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of 95.

Recognition

Memberships

Year	Organization	Type	Ref.
1970	IEEE	Life Fellow
1997	National Academy of Engineering	Emeritus
2003	National Academy of Sciences	Emeritus

Awards

Year	Organization	Award	Citation	Ref.
1973	IEEE	J. J. Ebers Award	"For outstanding technical contribution to electron devices."
1986	IEEE	IEEE Jack A. Morton Award	"For pioneering the theory and device applications of semiconductor heterostructures."
2000	Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences	Nobel Prize in Physics	"For developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics."
2002	IEEE	IEEE Medal of Honor	"For contributions to high-frequency transistors and hot-electron devices, especially heterostructure devices from heterostructure bipolar transistors to lasers, and their molecular beam epitaxy technology."

See also

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

External links

• 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