Prof. em. Dr. Peter Wachter

Prof. em. Dr.  Peter Wachter

Prof. em. Dr. Peter Wachter

Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics

ETH Zürich

Laboratorium für Festkörperphysik

HPZ G 27

John-von-Neumann-Weg 9

8093 Zürich

Switzerland

Additional information

Research area

Solid State Physics

Peter Wachter was full Professor of Physics at the Laboratory for Solid-State Physics of the ETH Zurich since 1973. He retired in 1999.

Prof. Wachter was born in Munich, Germany, on March 16, 1932. He studied physics at the Technical University in Munich, where he graduated in 1956. In 1960 he received his doctorate. He then spent two years as assistant professor at the Radiation and Solid State Laboratory of New York University. From 1963 he worked at the Laboratory for Solid-State Physics at the ETH Zurich in the area of ferromagnetic semiconductors. In 1964 he discovered the so called Busch-Wachter effect, internationally known as "red shift of ferromagnetic semiconductors". In 1969 he completed habilitation requirements and received several offers as professor from German universities, Prof. Wachter became an associate professor at the ETH Zurich in 1972. His field of research focused on experimental solid-state physics.

From 1976 to 1996, Prof. Wachter was a guest professor at the Université des Séances et Techniques du Langedoc in France (1976), the Academy of Sciences in the USSR, (1980) the Academia Sinica in the People's Republic of China (1983) and the Tohoku University in Japan (1996). He is the author of more than 550 publications and has been invited to give over 272 lectures. He was co-editor of "Solid State Communications", "Physica B" and "Lanthanides and Actinides". He wrote handbook articles about"Europium Chalcogenides: EuO, EuS, EuSe and EuTe (1979) and "Intermediate Valence and Heavy Fermions (1994). He was editor of the Proc. of Int. Conf. of Magnetooptics (1976), the Proc. of Int. Conf. on the Physics of Actinides and related 4f Materials (1982), the Proc. of Int. Conf. of Valence Instabilities (1986) and co-editor of Proc. of Int. Conf. of strongly correlated Electron Systems SCES (1996) and Proc. of Int. Conf. of Low Energy Electrodynamics in Solids (LEES) (1997).

Membership

Since Membership
1980 European Physical Society
1980 Zürich Physical Society
1965 Swiss Physical Society

Honours

Year Distinction
2002 Nomination as "European Physicist"
1998 Professor h.c. of Henan University (China)
1997 Nomination as "European Physicist"

Additional information

He was Dean of the Physics Department of ETH Zürich 1984 - 1986, Director of the Solid State Physics Laboratory of ETH Zürich 1980 - 1982, 1987 - 1989, 1996 - 1998. He was member of the Comission of Docents 1979 - 1985, 1989 - 1995. He was member of the Research Comission of ETH Zürich 1992 - 2001 and Chairman of the Magnetism Section of the European Physical Society 1987 - 1993. He lectured Physics I and II and Solid State Physics I and II. 1999 he became Emeritus.

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