physics

Horst Ludwig Störmer

Horst Ludwig Störmer is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Horst Ludwig Störmer rather than just read about it. In short: Horst Ludwig Störmer (German pronunciation: [ˈhɔʁst ˈluːtvɪç ˈʃtœʁmɐ] ; born April 6, 1949) is a German physicist, Nobel laureate and emeritus professor at Columbia University. He was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Daniel Tsui and Robert Laughlin "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" (the fractional quantum Hall effect).

Key takeaways

Horst Ludwig Störmer belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Horst Ludwig Störmer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Horst Ludwig Störmer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Horst Ludwig Störmer (German pronunciation: [ˈhɔʁst ˈluːtvɪç ˈʃtœʁmɐ] ; born April 6, 1949) is a German physicist, Nobel laureate and emeritus professor at Columbia University. He was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Daniel Tsui and Robert Laughlin "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" (the fractional quantum Hall effect). He and Tsui were working at Bell Labs at the time of the experiment cited by the Nobel committee.

Biography Störmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, and grew up in the nearby town of Sprendlingen. After graduating from the Goetheschule in Neu-Isenburg in 1967, he enrolled in architectural engineering at the TH Darmstadt, but later moved to the Goethe University Frankfurt to study physics, but since he had missed the registration period for physics, he began with a mathematics and later changed to physics, qualifying for his Diploma in the laboratory of Werner Martienssen. Here he was supervised by Eckhardt Hoenig, and worked alongside another future Nobel laureate, Gerd Binnig. Störmer moved to France to carry out his PhD research in Grenoble, working in a high-magnetic field laboratory which was run jointly between the French CNRS and the German Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. Störmer's academic advisor was Hans-Joachim Queisser, and he was awarded a PhD by the University of Stuttgart in 1977 for his thesis on investigations of electron hole droplets subject to high magnetic fields. He also met his wife, Dominique Parchet, while working in Grenoble. They divorced each other a few years later. After receiving his PhD, Störmer moved to the US to work at Bell Labs, where he carried out the research that led to his Nobel prize. After working at Bell Labs for 20 years, he became the I.I. Rabi professor of physics and applied physics at Columbia University in New York City. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2006. He retired as professor emeritus in 2011. Störmer is a naturalized US citizen.

Research career Perhaps as important as the work for which he won the Nobel prize is his invention of modulation doping, a method for making extremely high mobility two dimensional electron systems in semiconductors. This enabled the later observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect, which was discovered by Störmer and Tsui in October 1981 in an experiment carried out in the Francis Bitter High Magnetic Field Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within a year of the experimental discovery, Robert Laughlin was able to explain its results. Störmer, Tsui and Laughlin were jointly awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.

References

External links

Horst L. Stormer Patents Honeywell - Nobel Interactive Studio Horst Ludwig Störmer on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1998 The Fractional Quantum Hall Effect

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Horst Ludwig Störmer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Horst Ludwig Störmer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Horst Ludwig Störmer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Horst Ludwig Störmer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Horst Ludwig Störmer

In research: Horst Ludwig Störmer appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Horst Ludwig Störmer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Horst Ludwig Störmer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 births, 20th-century German physicists, 21st-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Horst Ludwig Störmer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Horst Ludwig Störmer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Horst Ludwig Störmer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Horst Ludwig Störmer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Horst Ludwig Störmer in simple terms?

Why does Horst Ludwig Störmer matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Horst Ludwig Störmer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Horst Ludwig Störmer.