Heinz Raether

Heinz Raether
Born
Heinz Artur Raether

(1909-10-14)14 October 1909
Nuremberg, German Empire[1]
Died31 December 1986(1986-12-31) (aged 77)
Aumühle, West Germany[1]
NationalityGerman
Known forKretschmann-Raether configuration
Raether limit
Scientific career
FieldsCondensed matter physics
Plasma physics
InstitutionsUniversity of Jena
University of Hamburg
Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Heinz Artur Raether (14 October 1909 — 31 December 1986)[1] was a German physicist. He is best known for his theoretical and experimental contributions to the study of surface plasmons, as well as for Kretschmann-Raether configuration, a commonly-used experimental setup for the excitation of surface plasmon resonances.[2][3]

From 1944 to 1946 he was a professor of physics at the University of Jena at the Physikalisches Institut.[1] Here he dealt with electron physics, electron microscopy, electron interference and gas discharges.[4]

In 1951, he took over the management of the Institute for Applied Physics at the University of Hamburg. After the development of the transistor, he focused on solid state physics. His work during this period concerned the structure and growth of crystals. Later he became interested in the collective behavior of the electrons of a crystal, the solid-state electron plasma.

In gas discharge physics, he devoted himself to the ignition process, especially the formation of the spark channel, the initial phase of electrical breakdown. In 1963 he was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.[5] In 1979 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

  1. ^ a b c d "Heinz Arthur Raether" (PDF). physik2.uni-jena.de. University of Jena. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-02-23. Retrieved 2020-01-28.
  2. ^ Maradudin, Alexei A.; Sambles, J. Roy; Barnes, William L., eds. (2014). Modern Plasmonics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 1–23. ISBN 9780444595263.
  3. ^ Kretschmann, E.; Raether, H. (1968). "Radiative Decay of Non Radiative Surface Plasmons Excited by Light" (PDF). Zeitschrift für Naturforschung. 23: 2135–2136. doi:10.1515/zna-1968-1247. S2CID 97127159.
  4. ^ Chvyreva, A; Pancheshnyi, S; Christen, T; Pemen, A J M (2018). "Raether–Meek criterion for prediction of electrodeless discharge inception on a dielectric surface in different gases". Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. 51 (11): 115202. Bibcode:2018JPhD...51k5202C. doi:10.1088/1361-6463/aaa9ce. ISSN 0022-3727. S2CID 126041363.
  5. ^ Holger Krahnke: Die Mitglieder der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 1751–2001 (= Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse. Folge 3, Bd. 246 = Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse. Folge 3, Bd. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1, S. 194.