Ronald Fuchs (January 27, 1932 – November 10, 2012) was an American theoretical physicist and professor at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...

. He is recognized for his work on electromagnetic properties of solids, light scattering of small particles and nonlocal optical phenomena.

Biography

Ernest Ronald Fuchs was born in Los Angeles, California in 1932, only child of Swiss-born Ernest Fuchs and Hanna Berta (Herren) Fuchs. Fuchs graduated from

John Muir College John Muir College is one of the eight undergraduate colleges at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). The college is named after John Muir, the environmentalist and founder of the Sierra Club. It has a humanitarian emphasis focused o ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

in 1950, and attended

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

(Caltech) on a full scholarship. He graduated as top in his class with a B.S. in physics in 1954. He then pursued graduate studies in physics at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, where he earned his M.S. in 1955 and his PhD in 1957. His PhD thesis focused on the absorption of light of

alkali metal halide Alkali metal halides, or alkali halides, are the family of inorganic compounds with the chemical formula MX, where M is an alkali metal and X is a halogen. These compounds are the often commercially significant sources of these metals and halides. ...

s, under the supervision of

Frederick Seitz Frederick Seitz (July 4, 1911 – March 2, 2008) was an American physicist, a pioneer of solid state physics, and climate change denier. Seitz was the 4th president of Rockefeller University from 1968 to 1978, and the 17th president of the Nation ...

. After completing his doctoral studies, Fuchs worked as a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the peopl ...

with a National Science Foundation Fellowship at the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

, Germany, and later worked at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) Laboratory for Insulation Research from 1958 to 1961. In 1961, Fuchs joined the faculty of the Iowa State University's department of physics and astronomy as an assistant professor. He was promoted to full professorship in 1974 and became

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

in 1996. In 1969, he became a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

. Throughout his career, Fuchs arranged two-year-long faculty leave as visiting professor to Germany. The first was to the

Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research The Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung'') was founded in 1969 and is one of the 84 institutes of the Max Planck Society. It is located on a campus in Stuttgart, together with th ...

from 1973 to 1974, and the second was to the

Freie Universitaet Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period as a Western continu ...

and the

Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI) is a science research institute located at the heart of the academic district of Dahlem, in Berlin, Germany. The original Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochem ...

from 1986 to 1987. He also took a year-long Overseas Fellowship at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 1997. He passed away in a house in

Ames, Iowa Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines in central Iowa. It is the home of Iowa State University (ISU). According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Ames ha ...

, as a consequence of a

plasmacytoma Plasmacytoma is a plasma cell dyscrasia in which a plasma cell tumour grows within soft tissue or within the axial skeleton. The International Myeloma Working Group lists three types: Plasma cell dyscrasia#Solitary plasmacytoma, solitary plasma ...

Research

Fuchs worked on the theory of the optical properties and non-local effects of metals and insulators, including

thin film A thin film is a layer of materials ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...

s, small particles, rough surfaces, and disordered systems. He also worked on surface reflectance spectroscopy and

electron energy loss spectroscopy Electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) is a form of electron microscopy in which a material is exposed to a beam of electrons with a known, narrow range of kinetic energies. Some of the electrons will undergo inelastic scattering, which mea ...

of inhomogeneous systems. The theory of Kliewer–Fuchs modes, related to vibrational modes found on the surface of insulating crystals, was developed by Fuchs and Kenneth Lee Kliewer in 1965. Fuchs developed the theory of surface modes in

ionic crystal In chemistry, an ionic crystal is a crystalline form of an ionic compound. They are solids consisting of ions bound together by their electrostatic attraction into a regular lattice. Examples of such crystals are the alkali halides, including ...

cubes exposed to a uniform electric fields.

Awards and honors

* For his 75th birthday, a conference was held in Puebla, Mexico in 2007 to honor Fuchs "in recognition for his contributions to nonlocal optics and optical properties of small particles and his fruitful collaborations with Latin American physicists". *He was given the

recognition for Outstanding Referees in 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuchs, Ronald 1932 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American physicists American condensed matter physicists Iowa State University faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society