Horst Rothe

Horst Rothe (born December 13, 1899 in Hosterwitz , Dresden ; † July 10, 1974 ) was a German high-frequency technician and physicist.

Life

Rothe studied at the TH Dresden and did his doctorate with Heinrich Barkhausen with an experimental thesis on the emission of hot cathodes. In 1926/1927, as a collaborator with Walter Schottky in Rostock, he wrote a volume of the manual of experimental physics on the subject of electron emission and electron tubes. He then went to Telefunken in Ulm in 1927 . Rothes was interested in the physics and technology of high-frequency electron tubes. He was responsible for the development of miniature tubes for receivers at Telefunken.

For about 15 years, Schottky and Eberhard Spenke had observed the weakening of the space charge in the scrap fox but had not yet understood it quantitatively. The experimental investigations by Rothe and his colleagues in the Telefunken tube laboratory showed the justification for applying this theory and provided essential foundations for the development of low-noise electron tubes.

This was a time of rapid progress in the field of electron tubes, characterized by the first technical development of multi-grid tubes, pentodes , hexodes, octodes. The advancing mechanization required the amplification of ever wider transmission ranges at ever higher frequencies. From 1933 he developed the universal pentode RV12P2000 with Werner Kleen under Walter Graffunder .

In 1939 his laboratory was in Berlin when Herbert Mataré joined. This also included Iris Runge (1888–1966). At the beginning of the war, his laboratory belonged to the research department headed by Hans Rukop , which was subordinate to the development department under Karl Rottger and, from April 1942, Leo Brandt . Her area of ​​responsibility also included research into the unreliable crystal detectors made from pyrite and carborundum .

From 1945 he was head of the development laboratories for the entire electron tube area at Telefunken. His task was to rebuild the tube development, starting practically from scratch, and he contributed significantly to the economic existence of the company. In the years 1950–1955 he published with a number of coworkers studies on the noise of electron tubes and active quadrupoles in general. The substitute image for noisy quadrupoles that he and Walter E. Dahlke specified, taking correlations into account, represents a significant advance and is used all over the world today. In 1952 Rothe was appointed director of tube development. Here he had brought the world's lowest noise low-frequency transistor onto the market for some time. For his work on the matrix representation of noisy quadrupoles, he was made a Fellow by the American IRE, later IEEE.

In 1954, a professorship for "electrical communications engineering" was established at the TH Karlsruhe, to which on April 1, 1956 Rothe was finally appointed full professor. In 1958 he founded the Institute for High Frequency Technology and High Frequency Physics here . He dealt intensively with amplifier noise. When the burl was invented in the early 1950s , a quantum mechanical amplifier with a noise temperature of a few Kelvin, Rothe felt that his specialty, noise, was addressed and decided to get involved in the field of burls as well. Shortly afterwards, the Institute for High Frequency Technology and Electronics (IHE) was set up with Helmut Friedburg (* 1913). The first research area of ​​both institutes was the noise of tubes and maser amplifiers, they were later replaced by parametric high frequency amplifiers with varactor diodes .

In personal conversations Rothe repeatedly emphasized the importance of his trips abroad - to Java and many times the USA - as well as the publication of his multi-volume work on electron tubes together with Walter Kleen for his professional career. He has written publications with around twenty employees and doctoral students and has supervised countless graduate students.

Rothe was very grateful for the professional success so delayed by the war. Serious illnesses, including his wife, forced him to live a much more withdrawn way of life from about 1962 onwards than actually corresponded to his lively and sociable nature. In 1967 Gerhard K. Grau took over the management of the institute and renamed it in 1971 to the Institute for High Frequency Technology and Quantum Electronics .

Fonts

• Technical electron tubes and their use ; 1928
• with Hellmut Simon from Osram: glow electrodes and technical electron tubes ; 1928; for the handbook of experimental physics
• Physics of glow electrodes; Manufacture of the glow electrodes ; 1928
• Basics and characteristics of electron tubes ; 1940
• Electron tubes as final and transmitter amplifiers ; 1940
• Electron tubes as vibration generators and rectifiers ; 1941
• Library of radio frequency engineering ; 1943, with Kleen and Jonathan Zenneck (Vol. 2–6)
• Electron tubes as initial stage amplifier ; 1944
• Fundamentals and characteristics of electron tubes ; 1948
• Electron tube physics in individual reports ; 1953
• The Telefunken tube - commemorative publication for the 50th anniversary of the Telefunken Society for wireless telegraphy. May 27, 1953 ; Franzis publishing house
• High vacuum electron tubes ; Volume 1, 1955
• Physical basics ; 1955
• Theory of noisy quadrupoles and their application ; In Telefunken-Röhre , issue 33 (1966) or issue 33a (1960)
• The molecular enhancer and its application

literature

• Obituary in: NTZ: Nachrichtenentechnische Zeitschrift , Volume 27, VDE-Verlag, 1974, p. 233.
• Proceedings of the IEEE ; Volume: 54 Issue: 8 August 1966.

Individual evidence

1. ^ The German University Newspaper united with Hochschul-Dienst, 1975
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ http://frequency.schiele-schoen.de/108/13755/fre20812266/Geschichte_der_Hochfrequenztechnik_an_der_Universitaet_Karlsruhe_TH.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.