Georg Busch (physicist)

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Prof. Dr. Georg Busch

Georg Busch (born September 12, 1908 in Zurich ; † January 31, 2000 there ) was a Swiss physicist .

Career

Georg Busch grew up in the city of Zurich. From 1927 he studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), where he received his diploma as a physicist in 1933 and became Paul Scherrer's assistant at the Physics Institute. In addition to his studies, he was a committed rowing athlete and won several Swiss championship rankings. With the dissertation Neue Seignette-Elektrika he received the title Dr. sc. nat. ETHZ. The speaker was Paul Scherrer. He presented his habilitation thesis on the mechanism of voltage-dependent resistances in 1942.

In 1949 Busch was elected as associate professor for physics at the ETHZ. This was followed by a visiting professorship at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, during 1951. In 1955, he was promoted to full professor at the ETH for the same subject. He founded the Laboratory for Solid State Physics in 1956 and was its head until his retirement in 1978. Busch played a key role in the design of the ETH Hönggerberg branch near Zurich, which was inaugurated in 1974. His farewell lecture on June 22, 1978 was entitled: Hydrogen - Energy Carrier of the Future? (Documentation available in the ETHZ library.)

Busch married Margarete Klemm in 1940. He died at the age of 91.

plant

Busch worked in various areas of solid state physics . He discovered the ferroelectric potassium dihydrogen phosphate while working as an assistant . The company Sprecher & Schuh suggested investigating the physical basis of silicon carbide resistors. Busch's habilitation thesis was dedicated to this topic. He turned to semiconductor research early on. Work on thermal emission from semiconductors and components of power electronics was important. Together with other researchers, contributions were made in other areas of solid-state physics on magnetism , magneto-optics and electron spectroscopy . Many physics students attended his lectures. The lecture materials on solid state physics were published in book form in both German and English. Busch was not only a theorist, but also created new measurement methods and introduced them in his internships. Former students report that the internships he designed were set up and carried out in an exemplary manner. Around 40 dissertations were written under his leadership. Several of his doctoral students later played an important role in Swiss industry. In the field of solid-state physics and electronics, Busch was one of the few professors at the ETH who were well known and respected internationally.

Honors

  • Member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences from 1966
  • Honorary member of Switzerland. Physical Society from 1976
  • Member of the New York Academy of Science from 1997

The following universities awarded Busch an honorary doctorate

Fonts (selection)

  • Electron conduction in non-metals: summary report. Birkhäuser, Basel 1950.
  • with U. Winkler: Determination of the characteristic quantities of a semiconductor from electrical, optical and magnetic measurements. In: Results of the exact natural sciences. Volume 29, 1956, pp. 145-207.
  • Teaching and research at the Physics Institute of the ETH. In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung. Volume 81, Issue 21, 1963, p. 396.
  • Instructions for the physical internship at the ETH 8th edition. Self-published, Zurich 1966.
  • W. Känzig: Georg Busch on his 60th birthday. In: Helvetica Physica Acta. Volume 41, No. 6/7, 1968, pp. 657-667. (with catalog raisonné)
  • U. Winkler: Georg Busch as a teacher. In: Helvetica Physica Acta. Volume 41, 6/7, 1968, p. 1263.
  • with H. Schade: Lectures on solid state physics. (= Textbooks and monographs from the field of exact sciences. Physical series. Volume 5). Birkhäuser, Basel 1973, ISBN 3-0348-5526-5 .
  • How I discovered the ferroelectric properties of KH2PO4. In: Ferroelectrics. Vol. 71, 1987, pp. 43-47.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Busch, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicist
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 2000
Place of death Zurich , Switzerland