2000 Ta-You Wu Lecturer - Horst L. Stormer

Born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1949, Stormer earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in physics from Goethe-Universtaet in Frankfurt, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Stuttgart, Germany in 1977. His thesis consisted of working on the properties of electron hole droplets in high magnetic fields. His work in modulation-doping earned him a permanent position at Bell Laboratories in the fall of 1978. In 1983, he became head of electronic and optical properties of solids research, and was appointed director of physical research in 1992. In January 1998, Stormer left Bell Labs to pursue a teaching career at Columbia University (New York, NY) where he is a Professor of Physics and Applied Physics and Adjunct Physics Director at Bell Labs, part time.

His interests include the physics of lower-dimensional systems, such as two-dimensional, one-dimensional and zero-dimensional systems. In these structures, electrons are quantum-mechanically bound to a plane, a line or to a small dot. At very low temperatures of about 1K and below, these quantum structures exhibit bizarre new properties.

As a result, quantum sheets in high magnetic fields show a resistance that is quantized to a few parts in 108. This is known as the integral quantum Hall effect. Professor Stormer, along with Robert C. Laughlin and Daniel C. Tsui, was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the fractional quantum Hall effect.

The discovery of the quantum Hall effect is significant because researchers usually need to break up particles to make smaller ones. In this particular effect, the trio found that electrons cooperate with each other and as a result, produce something smaller than the initial object.

In recognition for his technical work, Professor Stormer has received many awards, including the Buckley Award from the American Physical Society and the Otto Klung Physics Award from Freie University in Berlin, Germany. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He shared the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics by the Franklin Institute in 1998.