Walter Schottky

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Walter Schottky

Walter Hans Schottky (born July 23, 1886 in Zurich ; † March 4, 1976 in Forchheim (Upper Franconia) ) was a German physicist and electrical engineer . Walter Schottky was the son of the mathematician Friedrich Schottky (1851-1935).

According to Schottky, the Schottky effect (a glow emission, important for tube technology), the Schottky diode (whereby the barrier layer that occurs in it is called the Schottky barrier), the Schottky vacancies (or also Schottky defects ), the Schottky Anomaly (a peak value of the heat capacity ) and the Schottky equation (also Langmuir-Schottky space charge law).

He carried out research on electrical noise mechanisms (shot noise ), space charge , especially in electron tubes , and the barrier layer in semiconductors , which were important for the development of copper oxide rectifiers and transistors .

Live and act

Memorial plaque on the house at Heesestrasse 15 in Steglitz

After high school in Marburg and Steglitz , he studied physics at the University of Berlin from 1904 . He received his doctorate from Max Planck in 1912 on the subject of relative-theoretical energetics and dynamics . Then he went to the University of Jena to the Physics Institute under the direction of Max Wien . In 1913 he was able to demonstrate experimentally his theoretically derived U 3/2 law for the glow electron current in electron tubes ( Schottky equation ). From 1914 to 1916 he was back at the University of Berlin to do his habilitation. But he decided to switch to industry and started at Siemens in 1916 . In 1919 he resumed his habilitation efforts without giving up his ties to Siemens. He submitted his habilitation thesis Thermodynamics of the rare conditions in the steam room (thermal ionization and thermal glow) to the University of Würzburg in 1920 .

Schottky was professor for theoretical physics at the University of Rostock from 1923 to 1927 . He then moved back to Siemens & Halske in Berlin , where he worked in the scientific laboratories. Schottky conducted basic research there in the field of semiconductor physics and electronics . His research group moved to Pretzfeld in Franconia during the Second World War . This was also the trigger for the establishment of a Siemens laboratory in the castle in Pretzfeld in 1946. The physicist lived there until his death in 1976.

In 1915, Schottky invented the tetrode , a screen grid tube. In 1918, according to some sources, he developed the principle of a heterodyne receiver , a particularly high-quality radio receiving circuit that works with an intermediate frequency. However, no device was implemented.

Awards

Trivia

After him, the Walter Schottky Prize for outstanding achievements in solid-state physics, the Walter Schottky Institute of the Technical University of Munich , the Walter Schottky House of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen and the Walter Schottky Building of the Georg- Simon Ohm University in Nuremberg . The Walter-Schottky-Grundschule and Walter-Schottky-Straße in Pretzfeld are also named after him. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Component Technology is located on Schottkystrasse in Erlangen .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patent DE368937 : Receiving arrangement for electrical wave signals. Registered on June 18, 1918 . ‌
personal data
SURNAME Schottky, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schottki, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH March 4th 1976
Place of death Forchheim , Bavaria