Karin Herrmann

Karin Herrmann, 1984

Karin Herrmann (born February 15, 1936 in Berlin-Schmargendorf ; † March 14, 2018 in Berlin ) was a German physicist and university professor who mainly worked in research and teaching in the fields of solid-state physics and semiconductor materials .

biography

Childhood and studies

Karin Herrmann grew up with a brother, the later crystallographer Frank Peter Herrmann, and her cousin, the later physicist Hans-Jürgen Bachert, in Berlin-Britz .

After graduating from the Carl von Ossietzky Oberschule in Berlin in 1954, she studied physics at the Humboldt University in Berlin . Karin Herrmann completed her diploma thesis at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in the Institute for Crystal Physics and successfully completed it. On the recommendation of Robert Rompe , she then applied for additional studies at Lomonossow University in Moscow , which she was granted. There Herrmann specialized in the field of semiconductor physics and received his doctorate at the chair for crystal physics under academician Alexei Wassiljewitsch Schubnikow with the thesis Optical parameters of n- and p-type indium antimonide .

Career

After her return to the GDR she was appointed by Rompe to the Second Physics Institute of the Humboldt University , of which he was director. Here Karin Herrman turned to the electronic properties of the internationally renowned semiconductor tellurium at low temperatures.

In 1969 she received a lectureship at the same institute and in 1970 acquired the Facultas Docendi . She began with lectures and in the laboratory with the training of graduate students .

In 1976 Karin Herrmann completed her habilitation with the text Low-temperature properties of tellurium under the effect of an applied magnetic field via the surface conductivity of this semimetal. Based on the results of her measurements with impedance spectroscopy , she interpreted the surface conductivity of tellurium in a weak external magnetic field as surface superconductivity . This property has been used in topological isolators since the 2000s . Thereafter, Karin Herrmann was appointed professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin and is now also training doctoral students .

Experimentally they had turned in the 1980s to lead salts and a sensitive diode laser - spectrometers developed, which at low temperatures is working. With this instrument, she and her colleagues measured and compared air pollution at the busy intersection of Invalidenstrasse and Chausseestrasse , at Großer Stechlinsee and at other bodies of water . That was a pioneering achievement in physics and for environmental protection at the time .

In the 1990s, Karin Herrmann continued her scientific work at the Japanese Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) in Kyoto . RITE is the Japanese excellence center for the development of environmental technologies .

Private

Karin Herrmann was married to the physicist Rudolf Herrmann and they had two children together. The family's residence was in Berlin-Müggelheim . Karin Herrmann was buried in the Müggelheim forest cemetery in May 2018 .

Publications (selection)

• together with JW Tomm, C. Barthel and U. Barthel, published in physica status solidi (pps), November 1984: On the dispersion of the refractive index in active layers of lead-salt injection lasers
• together with TD Aitikeeva, AI Lebedev, AE Yunovich, AW Jalyschko and P. Schäfer; published in pps, September 16, 1981: Spectra of photo- and electroluminescence of bismuth, doped Pb1 − xSnxTe
• together with P. Rothkirch, Rainer Link, W. Sauer and F. Manglus published in pps: Anisotropy of the Electric Conductivity of Tellurium Single Crystals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung from 14./15. April 2018: Obituaries , p. 14.
2. ↑ On the dispersion of the refractive index in active layers of lead-salt injection lasers .
3. ↑ Spectra of photo- and electroluminescence of bismuth, doped Pb1-xSnxTe .
4. ^ Anisotropy of the Electric Conductivity of Tellurium Single Crystals