Erwin Wilhelm Müller

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Erwin Wilhelm Müller (born June 13, 1911 in Berlin ; † May 17, 1977 in Washington , USA ) was a German-American physicist . He is considered to be the first person to "see" an atom.

Career

Müller first studied physics at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg under Gustav Hertz and received his doctorate in 1936. Due to the turmoil of the Second World War, he did not achieve his habilitation until 1950 (also at the TU Berlin).

He held several positions at Siemens AG , at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry and, after the war, at the Free University of Berlin .

Müller achieved his first major successes with the invention of the field electron microscope in 1936. The device enabled the investigation of metal surfaces with a resolution of about 20 Å . For the first time, diffusion processes and restructuring on surfaces could be observed. Following this, researchers obtained many more insights into atomic processes on solid surfaces.

In 1947 Iwan Stranski brought him to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry (later the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society) in Berlin-Dahlem , where he constructed the first field ion microscope in 1951 that had resolutions up to 2.5 Å could deliver. For the first time, it was possible to obtain clear and sharp images of crystals in the atomic range, whereby individual atoms and their arrangement on the surface could be seen. Müller was the first person who could "see" an atom.

In 1951 he became a professor at the Free University of Berlin. In 1969 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . Since 1975 he was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences .

Since 1952 he taught and researched at the Pennsylvania State University in the USA. Erwin Wilhelm Müller died on May 17, 1977 in Washington, DC

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members Directory: Erwin W. Mueller. National Academy of Engineering, accessed June 10, 2017 .