Heinrich Rohrer (1933-2013)

摘要

Heinrich Rohrer, Heini to those who knew him, helped to open the door to nanotechnology. With Gerd Binnig, he produced a device that allowed researchers to image and measure atoms and molecules, and to manipulate them. Rohrer, who died on 16 May, three weeks before his 80th birthday, was born in 1933, half an hour after his twin sister. He grew up in the village of Buchs in eastern Switzerland. Rohrer studied physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, where he remained to pursue a PhD. It was during his PhD years that he first came into contact with the nanometre scale, through studying the properties of superconductors.