Jan Korringa (31 March 1915 – 9 October 2015) was a

Dutch American Dutch Americans () are Americans of Dutch and Flemish descent whose ancestors came from the Low Countries in the distant past, or from the Netherlands as from 1830 when the Flemish became independent from the United Kingdom of the Netherlan ...

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

, specializing in theoretical condensed matter physics. He also contributed to the KKR Method.

Education and career

Korringa received his

undergraduate degree An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher ed ...

from the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

. In 1937, Korringa went to

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, to pursue graduate studies. After the closure of

, Korringa returned to

. In 1942, he gave a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

from

and published his

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

, ''Onderzoekingen op het gebied algebraïsche optiek'' (''Essays in the area of science optics''). In 1946, Korringa became an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as a Protestant institution, it holds the distinction of being the oldest university in the Neth ...

. He was a protégé of

Hendrik Kramers Hendrik Anthony "Hans" Kramers (17 December 1894 – 24 April 1952) was a Dutch physicist who worked with Niels Bohr to understand how electromagnetic waves interact with matter and made important contributions to quantum mechanics and statistical ...

, who had been the first protégé of

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...

, and who was a large influence on his interest in

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

. In 1952, Korringa went to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and accepted a full professorship at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. He was a consultant at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

for many years. During the summers, he collaborated with a group at

Chevron Corporation Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation predominantly specializing in oil and gas. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened t ...

that developed nuclear magnetic resonance logging. In 1962, he was awarded a

Guggenheim Foundation fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated dis ...

that he used for a sabbatical at the

University of Besançon The Marie and Louis Pasteur University (UMLP), formerly known as University of Franche-Comté, is a pluridisciplinary public French university located in Besançon, Franche-Comté, with decentralized campuses in Belfort, Montbéliard, Vesoul and ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. In a 1947 paper, Korringa showed how

multiple scattering theory Multiple scattering theory (MST) is the mathematical formalism that is used to describe the propagation of a wave through a collection of scatterers. Examples are acoustical waves traveling through porous media, light scattering from water droplet ...

(MST) could be used to find the energy as a function of wavevector for electrons in a periodic solid. In 1954,

Walter Kohn Walter Kohn (; March 9, 1923 – April 19, 2016) was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the un ...

(a Nobel laureate) and Norman Rostoker (a nuclear physicist), derived the same equations using th
Kohn variational method
Two of Korringa's students, Sam Faulkner and Harold Davis, started a program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory using the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) band-theory equations to calculate the properties of solids. Korringa realized that his equations could be used to calculate the electronic states of non-periodic solids for which Bloch’s theorem does not hold. In 1958 he published an approach, now called the ''average t-matrix approximation'', for calculating the electronic states in random substitutional alloys. That work continued to evolve and was later connected to the higher-level theory called the

Coherent Potential Approximation The coherent potential approximation (CPA) is a method, in theoretical physics, of finding the averaged Green's function of an inhomogeneous (or disordered) system. The Green's function obtained via the CPA then describes an effective medium whose s ...

(CPA). Balázs Győrffy and Malcolm Stocks combined it with the KKR theory to obtain the KKR–CPA method, which is presently used for alloy calculations. Korringa’s MST is the basis for numerous theoretical developments, including the locally self-consistent

developed by Malcolm Stocks and Yang Wang that can be used to obtain the electronic and magnetic states of any ordered or disordered solid. In 1950, Korringa showed that the spin relaxation rate divided by the square of the magnetic resonance field shift (the Knight shift) obtained from an NMR experiment is equal to a constant, κ, times the temperature T. The magnitude of the Korringa constant κ and its possible deviation from a constant value is the signature of the effects of strong correlations in the electron gas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Korringa, Jan 1915 births 2015 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Delft University of Technology alumni Academic staff of Leiden University Ohio State University faculty Theoretical physicists American men centenarians People from Heemstede Dutch men centenarians Dutch emigrants to the United States Fellows of the American Physical Society