Knut Urban

Knut Urban (born June 25, 1941 in Stuttgart ) is a German physicist. From 1987 to 2010 he was director of the Institute for Microstructure Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich . He is known for his work on electron microscopy and received the Wolf Prize for Physics together with Harald Rose and Maximilian Haider .

The focus of Knut Urban’s research is in the field of aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy, both with regard to instrumental developments and control software, as well as the investigation of structural defects in oxides and the physical properties of complex metallic alloys. In addition, there is work on Josephson effects in high-temperature superconductors and their application for SQUID systems and magnetometers as well as work on the application of Hilbert transformation spectroscopic methods for the investigation of gigahertz and terahertz excitations in solids, liquids and gases.

In addition to his work at Forschungszentrum Jülich, he held a professorship for experimental physics at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen until his retirement .

biography

Urban studied physics at the University of Stuttgart and received his doctorate in 1972 with a dissertation on the subject of "Investigation of electron beam damage in a high-voltage electron microscope at low temperatures". He then carried out research at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research until 1986 . Among other things, there was the construction of a 1.2 MV high-voltage microscope laboratory as well as investigations on the anisotropy of the atomic displacement energy in crystals and on radiation-induced diffusion. In 1986 he was appointed professor for general material properties at the Institute for Materials Science at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg . In 1987 Urban was appointed to a chair for experimental physics at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen and at the same time was appointed director of the Institute for Microstructure Research at the Jülich Research Center. From 1996 to 1997 he was visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Materials Processing at Tohoku University in Sendai (Japan). With the establishment of the Ernst Ruska Center for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons (ER-C) as a joint competence platform of Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University as the national user center in the field of high-resolution electron microscopy, Urban was appointed one of the two directors of this center in 2004 .

From 2004 to 2006 he was President of the German Physical Society (DPG) . He is a member of various advisory boards, boards of trustees and senate committees of scientific institutions.

In 2009 Knut Urban was elected to the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts .

He retired in 2010 and was appointed JARA Senior Professor at RWTH Aachen University at the beginning of 2012 .

Knut Urban is married and has three daughters.

Awards and honors

• Acta-Metallurgica Award, 1986
• Carl Wagner Prize, 1986
• Research Award from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, 1996
• Heyn commemorative coin of the German Society for Material Science, 1999
• Medal for scientific journalism from the German Physical Society , 2000
• Honorary Member of the Materials Research Society of India, 2000
• Visiting Professor for Life at Wuhan University (China), 2001
• Von Hippel Award from the Materials Research Society (MRS), 2006
• Honorary member of the US Materials Research Society (MRS), 2006
• Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize for Innovation, 2006
• Honda Award for Ecotechnology (Honda Foundation), 2008
• Honorary Professor Xi'an Jiaotong University in Xi'an (China), 2009
• 2011 Wolf Prize for Physics
• JARA Senior Professor, 2012
• Honorary member of the German Society for Electron Microscopy, 2012
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Basic Sciences, 2013
• Honorary Member Japanese Institute of Metals and Materials, 2014
• Japan National Institute of Materials Science Award, 2015
• Honorary member of the German Physical Society, 2015
• Doctor honoris causa, Tel Aviv University, 2018
• Kavli Prize for Nanosciences, 2020

Web links

• Knut Urban (portrait)
• Knut Urban (CV)
• Institute for Microstructure Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
• Ernst Ruska Center for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Knut Urban is the new DPG President ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2014 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. 
2. ↑ Knut Urban. North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts , accessed on April 16, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Press Release Honda: Team of German Researchers to Receive Honda Prize 2008 for Their Achievement in Aberration-Corrected Transmission Electron Microscopy for High-Resolution Visualization of Atomic Structures
4. ↑ 3rd Jülich Lecture: Electron Microscopy
5. ^ First JARA senior professorship for Prof. Dr. Knut Urban ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2014 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. 
6. ↑ NIMS Award 2015