Friedrich E. Wagner (born November 16, 1943, sometimes abbreviated as Fritz Wagner) is a German physicist and emeritus professor who specializes in plasma physics. He was known to have discovered the high-confinement mode (i.e. H-mode) of magnetic confinement in fusion plasmas while working at the ASDEX tokamak in 1982. For this discovery and his subsequent contributions to fusion research, was awarded the

John Dawson Award The American Physical Society gives out a number of awards for research excellence and conduct; topics include outstanding leadership, computational physics, lasers, mathematics, and more. ;David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials ...

in 1987, the Hannes Alfvén Prize in 2007 and the

Stern–Gerlach Medal The Stern–Gerlach Medal is the most prestigious German Award for experimental physicists, named after the scientists of the Stern–Gerlach experiment, Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach. The prize, awarded annually since 1993, is awarded by the Deu ...

in 2009.

Life and career

Wagner was born in Pfaffenhofen an der Roth in

Bavaria, Germany Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. He studied at the Technical University of Munich and completed his doctorate in 1972. He then worked at Ohio State University from 1973 to 1974. At first, he worked on low-temperature physics, but switched to plasma fusion research during the energy crisis of the time. In 1975, he started working for the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, and in 1986 he led the tokamak experiment ASDEX. In 1988, Wagner habilitated at Heidelberg University and was given a teaching position there. He was then appointed honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich. From 1989 to 1993, Wagner was project manager of the

Wendelstein 7-AS Wendelstein 7-AS (abbreviated W7-AS, for "Advanced Stellarator") was an experimental stellarator which was in operation from 1988 to 2002 by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching. It was the first of a new class of advanced ...

stellarator experiment. In 1993, he became the director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and was Chairman of the Plasma Physics Department of the European Physical Society between 1996 and 2004. In 1999, he became full professor at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald. From 2003 to 2005, he was head of the Wendelstein 7-X experiment. He retired in 2008. He was President of the European Physical Society between 2007 and 2009.

Honors and awards

Wagner is an honorary member of the Ioffe Institute at St. Petersburg and a fellow of the Institute of Physics and 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 k ...

. In 1987, Wagner was awarded the

John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research The American Physical Society gives out a number of awards for research excellence and conduct; topics include outstanding leadership, computational physics, lasers, mathematics, and more. ;David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials ...

from the

. In 2007, he received the Hannes Alfvén Prize from the European Physical Society for his contributions to fusion research by magnetic confinement. In 2009, he received the

, the highest honour for

experimental physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and ...

awarded by the

German Physical Society The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. The DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 60,547, as of 2019, making it the largest physics society in the world. It holds an annual conference () and multiple ...

. He was awarded in honor of his work in high-temperature plasma physics and fusion research, especially for the discovery of self-organizing transport barriers (i.e. H-mode), which was groundbreaking for the mastery of fusion plasmas.

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagner, Friedrich Living people 1943 births German plasma physicists Technical University of Munich alumni Fellows of the Institute of Physics Fellows of the American Physical Society Presidents of the European Physical Society