Herbert Welling

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Herbert Welling, 2017

Herbert Welling (born September 1, 1929 in Hanover ) is a German physicist and university professor whose specialty is quantum optics .

Life

Welling received his doctorate in 1960 from the Technical University of Hanover (TH Hanover) and completed his habilitation there in 1967 on the subject of the time-dependent frequency behavior of ruby lasers . In the meantime he had been working at the US Army's communications and electronics research laboratory in Fort Monmouth from 1960 , where he first researched the maser and then (from 1963) set up a first laser research group. The research group had collaborated with Theodore Maiman , who had previously realized the first ruby ​​laser, in the search for novel laser materials. Welling devoted himself to the study of the temporal coherence of the laser, which at the time left a lot to be desired with the ruby ​​laser, and his group succeeded in reducing the number of modes in the ruby ​​laser to a single one. Since 1967 he worked again at the TH Hannover. There he succeeded in determining the natural line width of a laser for the first time with the help of a Michelson interferometer test setup, which was also important for confirming the quantum theories of the laser phase transition developed at the time. After the TH Hannover had meanwhile been granted the status of a Technical University (TU), he was appointed full professor there in 1974. Welling was director of the Institute for Quantum Optics at the TU Hannover until 1998. He expanded the institute into an internationally renowned center for laser research. Welling played a key role in bringing the Geo-600 experiment to Hanover in order to use it to detect gravitational waves together with the experimental branch of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (headed by Karsten Danzmann ). For this experiment, among other things, the development of particularly frequency-stable lasers was necessary, in which Welling was involved. At his institute, Welling attached great importance to close cooperation with private companies. Several young entrepreneurs had emerged from his institute. His more recent publications also include contributions to the use of lasers in material processing (also for nanostructures) and medicine such as the use of ultrashort laser pulses as a surgical instrument. Welling and colleagues in Hanover developed a laser scalpel back in the early 1970s . The neodymium-YAG laser used for this purpose, developed in Hanover, with an output power of 600 watts later served as a model for the laser used in the gravitational wave detector .

In 1986 he founded the Laser Zentrum Hannover with Hans Kurt Tönshoff and Heinz Haferkamp, ​​of which Welling was on the board until 2006.

Science manager Jürgen Mlynek is one of his doctoral students .

Awards

literature

  • Interview in Physics in Our Time 2010, No. 3
  • Herbert Welling A fascinating light source - from the early days of the laser to universal tools , Physik Journal, Volume 9, 2010, Issue 7, pp. 23-27

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ H. Gerhardt, Welling, A. Güttner Measurement of the Laser Linewidth due to quantum phase and amplitude noise above and below threshold I , Zeitschrift für Physik A, Volume 253, 1972, pp. 113-126
  2. ↑ As Welling explained in an interview in 2010, the experiment was originally supposed to go to Bavaria, but there the seismic disturbances were too strong because of the nearby Alps
  3. ↑ Welling, Iwo Zawischa The Gravitational Wave Detector Geo600 , Physikalische Blätter Vol. 55, 1999, No. 7/8, p. 69
  4. ↑ Stefan Nolte, Carsten Momma, Boris Chichkov, Herbert Welling Microstructuring with ultrashort laser pulses , Physikalische Blätter Vol. 55, 1999, No. 6
  5. ↑ Juliane Kaune: A life for the laser. The city of Garbsen honors the physicist and laser specialist Herbert Welling for his life's work , in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of November 28, 2008
  6. ^ Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture: Great Cross of Merit for Scientists. As a laser pioneer, physicist Herbert Welling set standards. February 14, 2011 Online ( Webcite Archive ( Memento from February 15, 2011 on WebCite ))
  7. ↑ Great Cross of Merit for Professor Dr. Herbert Welling , press release from the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture from August 31, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Welling, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover