AKA Walter Hermann Schottky

Born: 23-Jul-1886
Birthplace: Zürich, Switzerland
Died: 4-Mar-1976
Location of death: Pretzfeld, Germany
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist, Inventor

Nationality: Germany
Executive summary: Solid-state physics and electronics

German physicist Walter H. Schottky studied under Max Planck, and conducted landmark research in vacuum electronics and semiconductor electronics. His inventions include the screen-grid vacuum tube (1915), the tetrode (a two-grid system to prevent unwanted oscillations, 1919), and the ribbon microphone and ribbon loudspeaker (1924, with Erwin Gerlach). He explained the change in electrostatics at a metal /semiconductor interface (the Schottky effect), and discovered a cellular barrier at the interface between metal and semiconductor (the Schottky barrier), which led to development of a hot carrier semiconductor diode (Schottky diode) that exhibits a nonlinear voltage/current relationship. He is also the namesake of the Schottky defect, a particular kind of point defect in a crystal lattice.

Father: Friedrich Schottky (mathematician, b. 24-Jul-1851, d. 12-Aug-1935)
Wife: Elizabeth (one daughter, two sons)

    High School: Steglitz Gymnasium, Berlin, Germany (1904)
    University: BS Physics, University of Berlin (1908)
    University: PhD Physics, University of Berlin (1912)
    Scholar: Physics, University of Jena (1912-14)
    Teacher: Physics, University of Würzburg (1919-23)
    Professor: Theoretical Physics, University of Rostock (1923-27)

    Hughes Medal 1936
    Siemens Research laboratories (1914-19, 1927-58)
    German Ancestry
    Swiss Ancestry

Author of books:
Thermodynamik (Thermodynamics) (1929)

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