Biography
Klaus von Klitzing
Klaus von Klitzing was born in 1943 in Schroda. He received his PhD from the University of Würzburg in 1972. After research stays in England, USA and France he became a Professor at the Technical University in Munich in 1980. Since 1985, he was until 2018 director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.
He has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1985 for the discovery of the Quantum Hall Effect. This quantum effect opened a new research field and plays a major role in metrology, not only as a resistance standard RK=h/e² with the Planck constant h and the elementary charge e, but also in connection with the realization of a new SI system, especially a new kilogram, based on fundamental constants. Since 20.5.2019, the von Klitzing constant RK has a fixed value like the velocity of light.
He has published more than 500 papers in the field of semiconductor quantum structures and received a large number of national and international awards. He holds 22 honorary degrees and is a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Last updated: 07-04-2020