Physical Society Colloquium

Horst Stormer received his Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Stuttgart, joined Bell Labs as a postdoc shortly after, and became Member of Technical Staff in 1978. From 1983 to 1992 he headed the Semiconductor Physics Research Department and became the Director of the Physical Research Department of AT&T Bell Labs in 1992. In 1997 Stormer moved to Adjunct Physics Director at Bell Labs, now Lucent Technologies, and became a Professor in the Physics and the Applied Physics Department of Columbia University. Stormer has worked on the properties of lower-dimensional electron systems and published about 200 papers. In 1984 he shared the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the APS with D. C. Tsui and A. C. Gossard for the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect. He received the Otto Klung Award of the FU of Berlin in 1985 and shared the 1998 Franklin Medal and the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics with D. C. Tsui and R. B. Laughlin. Stormer is a Bell Labs Fellow, a Fellow of the APS, a Fellow of the AAS and a member of the NAS.

Nowhere has research in solid state physics had a bigger impact on technology than in the communication industry. The optical properties of glass fibers made possible the transmission capacity of the Internet and the unique electrical properties of semiconductors eventually gave rise to the PC. A myriad of optical and electronic devices that are the underpinning for today's communications industry ultimately can be traced back to our ever-increasing understanding and control of materials. Fundamental research on the physical properties of such condensed matter holds the promise for future technological revolutions in data-communication and processing technologies. This talk will provide examples of today's physical research, mostly at Bell Labs, its impact on technology and speculate on future technological opportunities.

Two-dimensional electrons in a semiconductor reveal to us totally new many-particle physics. Confined to a plane and exposed to a magnetic field such electrons display an enormously diverse spectrum of fascinating new properties. Fractional charge and fractional quantum numbers are probably the most spectacular consequences of such correlated electron behavior, but there are many other surprises.

They are just electrons - although lots of them.