Biography:Markus Büttiker
| Markus Büttiker | |
|---|---|
| |
| Markus Büttiker | |
| Born | 18 July 1950 Wolfwil, Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland |
| Died | 4 October 2013 Collonge-Bellerive, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland
|
| Known for | Landauer-Büttiker formalism; mesoscopic transport theory |
Markus Büttiker (18 July 1950 - 4 October 2013) was a Swiss theoretical physicist known for major contributions to mesoscopic physics, semiconductor physics, and quantum transport theory.[1][2] The Landauer-Büttiker formalism, named for Rolf Landauer and Büttiker, describes conductance in coherent mesoscopic systems in terms of scattering and transmission between contacts.[2][3]
Education and career
Büttiker received his diploma in theoretical physics from ETH Zurich in 1974 and earned his doctorate at the University of Basel in 1978.[1] He then spent a year as an assistant to H. Thomas at the Physics Institute of the University of Basel.[1]
After Basel, Büttiker joined the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center as a postdoctoral researcher with Rolf Landauer. From 1981 to 1994 he worked in IBM's research division, where his work helped shape the modern theory of electron transport in small systems.[1][2]
In 1994 Büttiker became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Geneva. From 1998 to 2007 he also served as director of the university's Department of Theoretical Physics.[1] He remained associated with the University of Geneva until his death in 2013.[2]
Research
Büttiker made pioneering contributions to mesoscopic semiconductor physics and quantum transport.[2] His work with Landauer connected the wave functions of noninteracting quantum systems to measurable conducting properties, providing a scattering-based framework for phase-coherent transport.[2]
In the mid-1980s Büttiker, Yoseph Imry, Rolf Landauer, and S. Pinhas developed a generalized many-channel conductance formula and applied it to small rings, including Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in conductors.[4] Büttiker's 1986 paper on four-terminal phase-coherent conductance became one of the standard references for multi-terminal quantum transport.[3]
Honors
In 1987 Büttiker, Yoseph Imry, Rolf Landauer, and Alfred Douglas Stone received an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for predicting the Aharonov-Bohm effect in small normal conductors.[1] Two years later Büttiker received the same IBM award for the multi-terminal formulation of the quantum Hall effect and the prediction of simultaneously quantized longitudinal and Hall resistances.[1] He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1990.[5]
Selected works
- Dynamical aspects in voltage-controlled current instabilities, doctoral dissertation, University of Basel, 1978.
- "Generalized many-channel conductance formula with application to small rings", with Y. Imry, R. Landauer, and S. Pinhas, Physical Review B 31 (1985).[4]
- "Four-terminal phase-coherent conductance", Physical Review Letters 57 (1986).[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "Markus Büttiker". 27 January 2014. https://manep.ch/news/people/markus-buttiker/.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "In Memoriam: Markus Büttiker". 22 October 2013. https://www.ictp.it/news/2013/10/memoriam-markus-buttiker.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Büttiker, M. (1986). "Four-terminal phase-coherent conductance". Physical Review Letters 57 (14): 1761-1764. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.57.1761. PMID 10033538.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Büttiker, M.; Imry, Y.; Landauer, R.; Pinhas, S. (1985). "Generalized many-channel conductance formula with application to small rings". Physical Review B 31 (10): 6207-6215. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.31.6207.
- ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm.
External links