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Karl Hess (scientist)

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Karl Hess
Born(1945-06-20)20 June 1945
Alma materUniversity of Vienna
Known forComputational electronics, solid-state physics, quantum mechanics, simulation
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

Karl Hess (born 20 June 1945 in Trumau, Austria) is the Swanlund Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).[1][2] He helped to establish the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at UIUC.[3][4]: 7, 38 

Hess is concerned with solid-state physics and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. He is recognized as an expert in electron transport, semiconductor physics, supercomputing, and nanostructures.[5] A leader in simulating the nature and movement of electrons with computer models,[1] Hess is considered a founder of computational electronics.[6]

Hess has been elected to many scientific associations, including both the National Academy of Engineering (2001) and the National Academy of Sciences (2003).[1] He has served on the National Science Board (NSB).[5]

Career

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Hess studied mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria, where he received his Ph.D. in 1970 in applied physics and mathematics.[7][3] He worked with Karlheinz Seeger on electron transport in semiconductors and subsequently became an assistant.[8]

In 1973 Hess went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) on a Fulbright scholarship to work with John Bardeen. With Chih-Tang Sah (the co-inventor of CMOS technology), Hess worked theoretically on electron transport in transistors, to find a solution of the Boltzmann transport equation for transistors.[1][3]

In 1974 Hess returned to the University of Vienna as assistant professor. In 1977 he was offered a position as a visiting associate professor which enabled him to return to UIUC. Hess worked on improving the efficiency of charge-coupled devices. He and Ben G. Streetman developed the concept of "real space transfer" to describe the performance of high-frequency transistors involving hot‐electron thermionic emission.[1][9][7] This work was important to the development of layered semiconductor technology.[3]

In 1980 Hess was appointed to a full professorship for electrical engineering and computer science at UIUC. He also undertook secret research at the United States Naval Research Laboratory from the 1980s onwards.[1]

Hess chaired one of two committees established in 1983 to consider the possible formation of a multidisciplinary research facility at the University of Illinois.[10][4]: 7  In the fall of 1987, William T. Greenough and Karl Hess became associate directors of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at UIUC.[4]: xviii, 38, 92  Hess later served as Co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures initiative at the Beckman Institute.[10]

Hess became "a leading theoretician in the realm of semiconductor transistors".[10] His models of the behavior of transistors and integrated circuits enabled researchers to understand how they worked at fundamental levels and find ways to improve them.[3] His work on simulation of the behavior of electrons in semiconductors led to the full-band Monte Carlo method of simulation.[7] This approach incorporated both the Boltzmann equation and aspects of quantum mechanics, using supercomputers to model electrons both as particles and as waves.[1] He also developed simulations for the behavior of electrons in optoelectronics, modeling quantum well laser diodes, tiny lasers used in bar-code scanners, CD players, and fiber-optic technology. Hess's algorithms were used for design software called MINILASE, enabling engineers to more quickly and accurately predict the effects of design modifications.[1][7]

From the 1990s onwards, Hess focused on nanotechnology and quantum informatics,[1] including quantum transport in mesoscopic systems.[11] Around 1995, a conversation with nanolithographer Joseph W. Lyding suggested to Hess that using deuterium to passivate the surfaces of integrated circuits had the potential to increase the speed or the lifetime of the circuit. Hess and Isik Kizilyalli compared the degradation of CMOS transistor wafers prepared with either deuterium or hydrogen, and found that use of deuterium substantially increased transistor lifetimes.[12][13][7] In 1996, Hess was named to the Swanlund Chair of Electrical and Computer and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois.[14]

Hess has written extensively about hidden variables, a theoretical idea in quantum mechanics that has been hotly contested by many scientists since Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.[3] Was quantum mechanics complete as a theory, or were not-yet-understood "hidden variables" required to explain phenomena such as "spooky action at a distance"?[15] In the 1960s, John Stewart Bell predicted that the question of hidden variables could be experimentally tested: the outcome of specific experiments based on the hypothetical Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paradox should differ depending on whether or not hidden variables did or did not exist. Hess and mathematician Walter Philipp controversially claim that Bell's theorem is flawed. They argue that Bell's test can be made to fail by modeling temporal information. With this addition, existing experimental findings can be explained without resorting to hidden variables or "action at a distance".[3][16][17][18] Others have argued that Hess and Philipp's formulation does not depend on new time parameters, but rather on a violation of the assumption of locality required by Bell.[19][20]

Hess officially retired from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2004, but remains the Swanlund Professor Emeritus.[5] After his retirement, Hess was nominated to the National Science Board (NSB) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by President George W. Bush, serving from 2006 to 2008.[5]

Honors

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Books published

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  • Hess, K.; Leburton, J.P.; Ravaioli, U. (1991). Computational electronics : semiconductor transport and device simulation. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 9780792390886.
  • Hess, Karl (1991). Monte Carlo device simulation : full band and beyond. Boston, MA: Springer US. ISBN 978-1461540267.
  • Hess, Karl (1995). Community technology. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 9781559501347.
  • Hess, Karl; Leburton, Jean-Pierre; Ravaioli, Umberto (1996). Hot Carriers in Semiconductors. Boston, MA: Springer US. ISBN 978-1-4613-0401-2.
  • Hess, Karl (2000). Advanced theory of semiconductor devices. New York, NY: IEEE Press. ISBN 978-0780334793.
  • Hess, Karl (2013). Working knowledge STEM essentials for the 21st century. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4614-3275-3.
  • Hess, Karl (2014). Einstein was right!. [S.l.]: Pan Stanford Publishing. ISBN 978-9814463690.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Brownlee, Christen (17 February 2004). "Biography of Karl Hess". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101 (7): 1797–1798. Bibcode:2004PNAS..101.1797B. doi:10.1073/pnas.0400379101. PMC 383292. PMID 14769927.
  2. ^ "Karl Hess Karl Hess Swanlund Professor Emeritus". ECE Illinois. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g McGaughey, Steve (April 26, 2006). "Hess leaves a huge legacy at Beckman, UIUC". Beckman Institute. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  4. ^ a b c Brown, Theodore L. (2009). Bridging divides : the origins of the Beckman Institute at Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois. ISBN 978-0252034848. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d e f McGaughey, Steve (January 1, 2005). "Hess nominated for National Science Board". ECE Illinois News. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  6. ^ a b "Professor Emeritus Karl Hess". Center for Advanced Study. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  7. ^ a b c d e Arakawa, Yasuhiko (2002). Compound semiconductors 2001 : proceedings of the Twenty-eighth International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors held in Tokyo, Japan, 1–4 October 2001. Bristol, U.K.: IoP Publ. p. vii. ISBN 9780750308564. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  8. ^ Seeger, Karlheinz; Hess, Karl F. (15 March 2005). "Momentum and energy relaxation of warm carriers in semiconductors". Zeitschrift für Physik A. 237 (3): 252–262. Bibcode:1970ZPhy..237..252S. doi:10.1007/BF01398639. S2CID 122290758.
  9. ^ Hess, K.; Morkoç, H.; Shichijo, H.; Streetman, B. G. (15 September 1979). "Negative differential resistance through real‐space electron transfer". Applied Physics Letters. 35 (6): 469–471. Bibcode:1979ApPhL..35..469H. doi:10.1063/1.91172.
  10. ^ a b c Bell, Trudy E. (1 Nov 1999). "The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology 'Two heads are better than one' is an adage honored by this research institute, where multidisciplinary collaboration is an art". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  11. ^ Hess, K.; Leburton, J. P.; Ravaioli, U. (1991). Computational Electronics Semiconductor Transport and Device Simulation. Boston, MA: Springer US. ISBN 978-1-4757-2124-9.
  12. ^ Hess, K.; Register, L. F.; Tuttle, B.; Lyding, J.; Kizilyalli, I. C. (October 1998). "Impact of nanostructure research on conventional solid-state electronics: The giant isotope effect in hydrogen desorption and CMOS lifetime". Physica E: Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures. 3 (1–3): 1–7. Bibcode:1998PhyE....3....1H. doi:10.1016/S1386-9477(98)00211-2.
  13. ^ Kizilyalli, I. C.; Lyding, J. W.; Hess, K. (March 1997). "Deuterium post-metal annealing of MOSFET's for improved hot carrier reliability". IEEE Electron Device Letters. 18 (3): 81–83. Bibcode:1997IEDL...18...81K. doi:10.1109/55.556087. S2CID 13207342. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  14. ^ a b c Hess, Karl (1998). "Multi-Scale Approach to Semiconductor Device Simulation Combining Semi-classical and Quantum Regions" (PDF). DTIC. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  15. ^ "What is spooky action at a distance?". The Economist. March 16, 2017. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  16. ^ Hess, K.; Philipp, W. (27 November 2001). "Bell's theorem and the problem of decidability between the views of Einstein and Bohr". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 98 (25): 14228–14233. Bibcode:2001PNAS...9814228H. doi:10.1073/pnas.251525098. PMC 64664. PMID 11724942.
  17. ^ Ball, Philip (29 November 2001). "Exorcising Einstein's spooks Is there another layer of reality beyond quantum physics?". Nature. doi:10.1038/news011129-15. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  18. ^ Hess, K.; Philipp, W. (27 November 2001). "A possible loophole in the theorem of Bell". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 98 (25): 14224–14227. Bibcode:2001PNAS...9814224H. doi:10.1073/pnas.251524998. PMC 64663. PMID 11724941.
  19. ^ Gill, R. D.; Weihs, G.; Zeilinger, A.; Zukowski, M. (31 October 2002). "No time loophole in Bell's theorem: The Hess-Philipp model is nonlocal". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99 (23): 14632–14635. arXiv:quant-ph/0208187. Bibcode:2002PNAS...9914632G. doi:10.1073/pnas.182536499. PMC 137470. PMID 12411576.
  20. ^ Scheidl, T.; Ursin, R.; Kofler, J.; Ramelow, S.; Ma, X.-S.; Herbst, T.; Ratschbacher, L.; Fedrizzi, A.; Langford, N. K.; Jennewein, T.; Zeilinger, A. (1 November 2010). "Violation of local realism with freedom of choice". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (46): 19708–19713. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10719708S. doi:10.1073/pnas.1002780107. PMC 2993398. PMID 21041665.
  21. ^ "Former Board Members". National Science Foundation. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  22. ^ Brandt, Deborah (February 16, 2001). "National Academy of Engineering Elects 74 Members and Eight Foreign Associates". The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  23. ^ "Members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences: 1780-2012" (PDF). American Academy of Arts & Sciences. p. 240. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  24. ^ "IEEE DAVID SARNOFF AWARD RECIPIENTS" (PDF). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  25. ^ "APS Fellow Archive". APS. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  26. ^ Hess, Karl (1995). "Multi-scale Approach to Semiconductor Device Simulation" (PDF). DTIC. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  27. ^ "Past J.J. Ebers Award Winners". IEEE Electron Devices Society. Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2017.