Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim

Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim (November 7, 1899 – October 5, 1985) was a German–American theoretical physicist. He was a pioneer in the applications of quantum mechanics to solid-state problems, such as thermionic emission, work function of metals, field electron emission, rectification in metal-semiconductor contacts and electrical resistance in metals and alloys. He also worked in the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics, cosmic rays and in nuclear physics.

Biography

Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim was born on November 7, 1899, in Munich, Germany. In 1923, he received his Ph.D. in Physics, under Max Born, from the University of Göttingen.

Nordheim wrote extensive articles for the Lehrbuch der Physik by J. H. J. Müller and Claude Pouillet on the quantum theory of magnetism and the conduction phenomena in metals. He received honorary Doctor of Science degrees from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 1951 and from Purdue University in 1963. was to establish the correct physical explanation of the physical phenomenon now called field electron emission. They established that electron emission occurred by a form of wave-mechanical tunneling, now called Fowler–Nordheim tunneling, and, with the help of the assumption that electrons in metals obeyed Fermi–Dirac statistics, derived an (approximate) emission equation. Over time, this equation has been developed into a family of approximate equations (offering different degrees of approximation to reality, when describing field emission from bulk metals), known as Fowler–Nordheim-type equations.

Fowler–Nordheim tunneling was the first effect in physics to be firmly identified as due to wave-mechanical tunneling, in the early days of quantum mechanics. The original Fowler–Nordheim-type equation was one of the first to use Fermi–Dirac statistics to explain an experimental phenomenon involving electrons in metals, and its success greatly helped to establish modern electron band theory. The Fowler–Nordheim paper also established the physical basis for a unified treatment of field-induced and thermally induced electron emission.

The ideas of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Fowler and Nordheim were also an important stimulus to the development, by George Gamow, and Ronald W. Gurney and Edward Condon, later in 1928, for the theory of the radioactive decay of nuclei (by alpha particle tunneling).