Knut W. Urban (born 25 June 1941 in
Stuttgart) is a German physicist. He has been the Director of the Institute of Microstructure Research at
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ here for short) is a national research institution that pursues interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, information, and bioeconomy. It operates research infrastructures with a focus on supercomputers. Cu ...
from 1987 to 2010.
Knut Urban's research focuses on the field of
aberration-corrected
transmission electron microscopy
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a g ...
(both regarding the further development of instruments and the control software), the examination of structural defects in oxides and the physical properties of complex metallic alloys. He also works on
Josephson effect
In physics, the Josephson effect is a phenomenon that occurs when two superconductors are placed in proximity, with some barrier or restriction between them. It is an example of a macroscopic quantum phenomenon, where the effects of quantum mec ...
s in
high-temperature superconductors
High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previo ...
and the application of these effects in
SQUID systems and magnetometers as well as on the application of Hilbert transform spectroscopy in examining the excitation of solids, liquids and gases on the gigahertz and terahertz scale.
Besides his activities at Forschungszentrum Jülich he was also professor for
experimental physics at
RWTH Aachen University before retirement.
Biography
Urban studied physics at the
University of Stuttgart and was awarded a PhD in 1972 for his dissertation on the study of the damage caused by the electron beams in a high-voltage electron microscope at low temperatures. He subsequently conducted research at the
Max Planck Institute of Metals Research in Stuttgart until 1986. Amongst other tasks, he was involved in the installation of a 1.2-MV high-voltage microscope laboratory as well as in studies on the anisotropy of atomic displacement energy in crystals and on radiation-induced diffusion. In 1986 he was appointed professor of general material properties by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
. In 1987 Urban was appointed to the chair of experimental physics at RWTH Aachen University and simultaneously became the director of the Institute of Microstructure Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich. From 1996 to 1997 he was a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Materials Processing of
Tohoku University
, or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...
in
Sendai (Japan). Knut Urban was appointed one of two directors of the
Ernst Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons (ER-C) when it was founded in 2004 as a common competence platform of Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University as well as a national centre for users of
high-resolution transmission electron microscopes.
From 2004 to 2006 he was president of the
German Physical Society (DPG) which is the world's largest organisation of physicists. He is a member of several advisory bodies, boards of trustees and senate committees of scientific institutions.
Knut Urban formally retired as the Director of the Institute of Microstructure Research and the
Ernst Ruska Centre (ER-C) in Jülich in 2010 and was appointed a JARA senior professor at
RWTH Aachen University in 2012. In 2009, he was elected a member of the
.
Knut Urban is married and has three daughters.
Awards and honours
* 1986 Acta Metallurgica Award (best paper of the year 1984)
* 1986
Carl Wagner
Carl Wilhelm Wagner (May 25, 1901 – December 10, 1977) was a German Physical chemist. He is best known for his pioneering work on Solid-state chemistry, where his work on oxidation rate theory, counter diffusion of ions and defect chemistry ...
Award, University of Göttingen
* 1996 Research Award of the
Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science
* 1999 Heyn Medal of German Society for Materials Science (DGM)
* 2000 Honorary Member Materials Research Society of India
* 2000 Medal for Scientific Publishing of the
German Physical Society (DPG)
* 2006
Von-Hippel Award of the US
Materials Research Society
The Materials Research Society (MRS) is a non-profit, professional organization for materials researchers, scientists and engineers. Established in 1973, MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 14,000 materials researchers from academi ...
(MRS)
* 2006 Honorary Member of US Materials Research Society (MRS)
* 2006 Karl Heinz Beckurts-Award for Scientific and Technical Innovation
* 2008 Honda Award for Ecotechnology (Honda Foundation, Japan)
*2009 Appointment Member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
* 2009 Honorary Professor at
Xi'an Jiaotong University
Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU, ) is a public research university in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. As a member of Double First Class University Plan, C9 League, Project 985, and Project 211, it is a leading national university with special strengths ...
, Xi'an, China
* 2011
Wolf Prize
The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of nati ...
in Physics
* 2012 Honorary Member German Electron Microscopy Society
* 2014
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...
in Basic Sciences (BBVA Foundation, Madrid/Spain)
*2015 Honorary Member German Physical Society
*2015 Honorary Member Japanese Institute of Metals and Materials
* 2015 NIMS Award (National Institute of Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan)
*2018 Doctor honoris causa, Tel Aviv University
*2020 He has been awarded the
Kavli Prize
The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 as a joint venture of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It honors, supports, and recognizes scientists for outstan ...
in neuroscience,(together with
Maximilian Haider and
Harald Rose and
Ondrej Krivanek
Ondrej L. Krivanek (born Ondřej Ladislav Křivánek; August 1, 1950) is a Czech/British physicist resident in the United States, and a leading developer of electron-optical instrumentation. He won the Kavli Prize for Nanoscience in 2020 for his ...
).
2020 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience
www.kavliprize.org. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
*2020 Election as Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
References
External links
Knut Urban (CV)
Institute of Microstructure Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich
Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Urban, Knut
1941 births
Living people
20th-century German physicists
Scientists from Stuttgart
Wolf Prize in Physics laureates
Microscopists
Kavli Prize laureates in Nanoscience
21st-century German physicists
Presidents of the German Physical Society
RWTH Aachen University faculty