Wolfgang Krätschmer (born 16 November 1942 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) is a German physicist. Krätschmer studied physics in Berlin. After his

Diplom A ''Diplom'' (, from ) is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

he went to the

Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics The Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik ("MPI for Nuclear Physics" or MPIK for short) is a research institute in Heidelberg, Germany. The institute is one of the 80 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Max Planck Society), an independent, ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

and earned his PhD there in 1971 with a thesis on artificially etched tracks of accelerated heavy ions in

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

. In his career, he has worked on cosmic-ray heavy-ion tracks in lunar samples, as well as infrared and UV spectra of

interstellar dust Cosmic dustalso called extraterrestrial dust, space dust, or star dustis dust that occurs in outer space or has fallen onto Earth. Most cosmic dust particles measure between a few molecules and , such as micrometeoroids (30 μm). Cosmic dust can ...

. Together with his PhD student Konstantinos Fostiropoulos and with Donald Huffman from the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

, he developed a procedure for the synthesis of

fullerene A fullerene is an allotropes of carbon, allotrope of carbon whose molecules consist of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to six atoms. The molecules may ...

s. This procedure was the first to produce fullerenes in large amounts for chemical experiments. Since 1993, he is an honorary professor ("Honorarprofessor") at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

Honors

* 1992 – Stern–Gerlach Medal * 1993 – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize * 1994 – Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize * 2002 – Carl Friedrich Gauss Medaille * 2008 – Liebig Medal * 2008 – Honorary doctorate from the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

* 2010 –

European Inventor Award The European Inventor Award (formerly European Inventor of the Year Award, renamed in 2010), are presented annually by the European Patent Office, sometimes supported by the respective Presidency of the Council of the European Union and by the Eur ...

in the "Lifetime Achievement" categoryInvention: Process for working with new form of carbon
/ref> awarded by the

European Patent Office The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation

References

External links

Homepage at MPI for Nuclear Physics
20th-century German physicists Carbon scientists Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners 1942 births Living people European Inventor Award winners 21st-century German physicists {{Germany-physicist-stub