Klaus von Klitzing

Who is Klaus von Klitzing?

Klaus von Klitzing is a German physicist known for discovery of the integer quantum Hall Effect, for which he was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 1962, von Klitzing passed the Abitur at Artland Gymnasium in Quakenbrück, Germany, before studying physics at the Braunschweig University of Technology, where he received his diploma in 1969. He continued his studies at the University of Würzburg at the chair of Gottfried Landwehr, completing his PhD thesis Galvanomagnetic Properties of Tellurium in Strong Magnetic Fields in 1972, and habilitation in 1978. This work was performed at the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford and the Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory in France, where he continued to work until becoming a professor at the Technical University of Munich in 1980. Von Klitzing has been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart since 1985.

The von Klitzing constant, RK = h/e² = 25,812.807449 Ω, is named in honor of von Klitzing's discovery of the quantum Hall effect, and is listed in the National Institute of Standards and Technology Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. The inverse of the von Klitzing constant is equal to half that of the conductance quantum value.