Born to a working-class family in Weimar, Germany, Kroemer excelled in physics at school, letting him advance faster than his peers in the subject.[4]
Career
Kroemer worked in a number of research laboratories in Germany and the United States and taught electrical engineering at the University of Colorado from 1968 to 1976. He joined the UCSB faculty in 1976, focusing its semiconductor research program on the emerging compound semiconductor technology rather than on mainstream silicon technology. Charles Kittel had published the successful Thermal Physics in 1969, and enlisted Kroemer to edit it for a second edition, which appeared in 1980.
He is also the author of the textbook Quantum Mechanics for Engineering, Materials Science and Applied Physics.[5]
Kroemer was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 1997 for conception of the semiconductor heterostructure transistor and laser, and for leadership in semiconductor materials technology. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003.
Kroemer always preferred to work on problems that are ahead of mainstream technology, inventing the drift transistor in the 1950s and being the first to point out that advantages could be gained in various semiconductor devices by incorporating heterojunctions. Most notably, though, in 1963 he proposed the concept of the double-heterostructurelaser, which is now a central concept in the field of semiconductor lasers. Kroemer became an early pioneer in molecular beam epitaxy, concentrating on applying the technology to untried new materials.
Personal life
Kroemer was an atheist.[6] He died on March 8, 2024, at the age of 95.[7][8][9][10]
^H. Kroemer, Quantum Mechanics, Prentice Hall (1994)
^Kroemer, Herbert. "Herbert Kroemer – Science Video Interview". Interviewer: "You have no belief in a afterlife?" Kroemer: "That's correct." Interviewer: "...You don't see the evidence of a designer?" Kroemer: "No, I don't." Interviewer: "Could you say more about it?" Kroemer: "I think it's just wishful thinking."
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