Rainer Waser (born September 16, 1955, in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

professor of Electrical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. He is also director of the section ''Electronic Materials'' at the

Peter Grünberg Peter Andreas Grünberg (; 18 May 1939 – 7 April 2018) was a German physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Albert Fert of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk d ...

Institute which is located on the campus of Jülich Research Center (

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 ...

). His research and teaching is on

solid-state chemistry Solid-state chemistry, also sometimes referred as materials chemistry, is the study of the synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials, particularly, but not necessarily exclusively of, non-molecular solids. It therefore has a str ...

and defect chemistry to electronic properties and modelling, the technology of new materials and the physical properties of construction components. Important findings include insights in the functioning of the so-called

memristor A memristor (; a portmanteau of ''memory resistor'') is a non-linear two-terminal electrical component relating electric charge and magnetic flux linkage. It was described and named in 1971 by Leon Chua, completing a theoretical quartet of fu ...

s. Waser grew up in

Heusenstamm Heusenstamm () is a town of over 18,000 people in the Offenbach district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Geography Location Heusenstamm is one of 13 towns and communities in the Offenbach district. The town li ...

near Frankfurt. He studied

Physical Chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistica ...

Darmstadt University of Technology Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse a ...

where he received a diploma degree in 1979. Then he went to the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

to conduct research at the Institute of Electrochemistry. After that he turned to Darmstadt and worked as scientific assistant until he completed his PhD.

Career

Waser joined the

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

research laboratories (research group Electronic Ceramics) at Aachen. In 1992, Waser accepted a Chair for Electronic Materials in the Faculty of Electrical Science and Information Technology at RWTH Aachen University. In 2012, Waser was elected to the post of Speaker of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at Aachen university. Waser was awarded the renowned Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2014.

Awards and honors

''A comprehensive list can be found in the cv on the institute's website.'' * 2015 – Honorary doctorate from the

University of Silesia in Katowice The University of Silesia in Katowice ( pl, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach, UŚ) is an autonomous state-run university in Silesia Province, Katowice, Poland. The university offers higher education and research facilities. It offers undergrad ...

* 2014 – Tsungming-Tu Prize, awarded by the National Science Council in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

(the country’s highest academic distinction which can be bestowed on non-Taiwanese citizens) * 2014 – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize * 2007 – Masao Ikeda Award, Ikeda Memorial Foundation, Kyoto, Japan * 2001 – Outstanding Achievements Award, International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics (ISIF) * 2000 – Ferroelectrics Recognition Award,

IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

Fellowships and Academy Membership

* Fellow of the North-Rhine Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. * Spokesperson of the section ''Future information technology (FIT)'' within the

Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Energy, HZB) is part of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. The institute studies the structure and dynamics of materials and investigat ...

Helmholtz Berlin
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Other Functions

* Executive Advisory Board Member of the journal ''Advanced Functional Materials''

Selected works

* * * * *

External links

* Website of th

(Waser's Institute at RWTH Aachen)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waser, Rainer 1955 births German electrical engineers German physical chemists Academic staff of RWTH Aachen University Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners Living people Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni Engineers from Frankfurt Solid state chemists