Heinrich Rohrer

Heinrich Rohrer (born June 6, 1933) is a Swiss physicist who, with Gerd Binnig, received half of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Ernst Ruska received the other half of the prize.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rohrer was educated at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and received his Ph.D. there in 1960. In 1963 he joined the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich, where he remained. Binnig also joined the laboratory, and it was there that the two men designed and built the first scanning tunneling microscope.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This instrument is equipped with a tiny tungsten probe whose tip, only about one or two atoms wide, is brought to within five or ten atoms' distance of the surface of a conducting or semiconducting material. (An atom is equal to about 0.1 nanometre, or one angstrom.) When the electric potential of the tip is made to differ by a few volts from that of the surface, quantum mechanical effects cause a measurable electric current to cross the gap. The strength of this current is extremely sensitive to the distance between the probe and the surface, and as the probe's tip scans the surface, it can be kept a fixed distance away by raising and lowering it so as to hold the current constant. A record of the elevation of the probe is a topographical map of the surface under study, on which the contour intervals are so small that the individual atoms making up the surface are clearly recognizable.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

June 6: June 6 is the 157th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (158th in leap years), with 208 days remaining....

1933: 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar)....

Swiss: REDIRECT Switzerland...

Heinrich Rohrer related Images and Photos (experimental)

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Von Biber	Heinrich Schliemann (1822-90) and His Wife	Portrait of Heinrich Schutz	Portrait of Heinrich Heine 1831
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Swiss Educational Reformer Author of "Leonard and Gertrude"	Entrance of Heinrich Barth's (1821-65) Caravan into Timbuktu in 1853	Portrait of the Poet Heinrich Heine	Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf Von Zeppelin German Soldier Aviator and Airship Constructor
The Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich IV Does Penance at Canossa Modena After	The Children of Councillor Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747)	Kano Nigeria in 1851 'Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa' by Heinrich Barth	View of Kano Nigeria from 'Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa' by Heinrich Barth