Honeywell and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced today that Dr. Klaus von Klitzing, 1985 Nobel Laureate in Physics, will visit the campus on April 12th and 13th as part of the Honeywell-Nobel Initiative. Georgia Tech is one of 11 universities worldwide selected to participate in this groundbreaking educational program.

The Honeywell-Nobel Initiative is a global education effort launched in 2006 that is designed to connect students across the globe with Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry and Physics. The Initiative combines on-campus events, Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Lecture Series, with web-based educational content created with Nobel Laureates, and broadcast programming.

General Lecture
11 a.m. -12:30 p.m. April 12
Howey Physics Building
Lecture Hall 1

"Honeywell takes great pride in our relationship with Georgia Tech," said Tom Buckmaster, president Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company's corporate citizenship initiative. "Our partnership allows us to bring one of the world's leading scientists directly to our next generation of aspiring physicists here at Georgia Tech."

Klaus von Klitzing discovered the Quantum Hall Effect, work for which he was recognized with the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics. As part of his visit, Dr. von Klitzing will deliver a lecture entitled "Micro- to Nanoelectronics," on Thursday, April 12 to Georgia Tech students and faculty. In his talk, von Klitzing will provide an overview of physics, technology and the application of semiconductor quantum structures and discuss some of the recent research activities undertaken by his group in this field. Details of his Nobel Prize can be found at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1985/

The von Klitzing constant, RK = h / e2 = 25812.807449(86)Ω, named in honor of Dr. von Klitzing's discovery of the Quantum Hall Effect and listed on The National Institute of Standards and Technology Reference on Constants, Units and Uncertainty, describes a phenomenon exhibited by certain semiconductor devices at low temperatures and high magnetic fields, whereby the Hall resistance becomes precisely equal to (h/e2)/n, where h is Planck's constant, e is the electronic charge, and n is either an integer or a rational fraction.

"It's an honor to welcome Dr. von Klitzing to our campus," said Mei-Yin Chou, Chair of the School of Physics. "His discovery of the quantized Hall Effect has allowed for the definition of a new practical standard for electrical resistance. I know his presence and presentations will be inspiring for both our students and faculty."

Klaus von Klitzing was born in 1943, in German-occupied Poland. At the end of World War II, he and his parents relocated to West Germany. There, von Klitzing attended the Technical University of Brunswick and went on to earn a doctorate in physics at the University of Wurzburg in 1972. In 1980, he became a professor at the Technical University of Munich and in 1985 was appointed the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart, Germany and Honorary Professor at the University of Stuttgart.

von Klitzing discovered that, under appropriate conditions, the resistance offered by an electrical conductor is quantized; that is, it varies by discrete steps rather than smoothly and continuously. He demonstrated that electrical resistance occurs in very precise units by using the Hall Effect. The Hall Effect denotes the voltage that develops between the edges of a thin current-carrying ribbon placed between the poles of a strong magnet. The ratio of this voltage to the current is called the Hall Resistance.

The significance of von Klitzing's discovery, made in 1980, was immediately recognized. His experiments enabled other scientists to study the conducting properties of electronic components with extraordinary precision. His work also aided in determining the precise value of the fine structure constant and in establishing convenient standards for the measurement of electrical resistance.

Today, von Klitzing's research focuses on the properties of low dimensional electronic systems, typically in low temperatures and in high magnetic fields.

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