Herbert Gleiter obtained his PhD in 1966 in physics the University of Stuttgart. After spending several years at Harvard University and MIT, he accepted positions at the Universities of Bochum, Saarbruecken and the ETH Zuerich. In 1994, he joined the Executive Board of the Research Center Karlsruhe and founded there the Institute of Nanotechnology (INT).

During his work at Harvard and MIT he discovered the existence of dislocations in inter-crystalline interfaces and proposed the “structural unit model” of grain boundaries which provides the basis for today’s grain boundary models. In the late 1970s, he pioneered a new class of materials: nano-crystalline materials. The idea of these new materials was to create solids consisting of a large (50% or more) volume fraction of inter-crystalline boundaries between crystallites with the same or with different chemical compositions (single phase or multi-phase nano-crystalline materials). As the arrangements of atoms in interfaces differ from the ones in crystals and glasses, nano- materials were expected to open the way to solids with new atomic structures and hence new properties. This idea was confirmed by the rapidly growing number of subsequent studies on nano-materials world-wide. Today more than 800 papers are published in this area every year, several international conferences are organized annually and most (national as well as international) conferences in the area of Materials Science have one or several sessions on “nano-materials”.

In 1989 he initiated the development of new class of noncrystalline solids, the so called nano-glasses. His present work focuses on the application of nanotechnology to probe limits of Quantum Physics in systems of macroscopic size.

Throughout his career he received more than 40 prizes/awards including the Leibniz and Max Planck Prize as well as five honorary doctorates and several honorary professorships. He is Founding Director of the “Herbert Gleiter Institute of Nanoscience” at Nanjing, China and became Director of the Herbert Gleiter International Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at Shenyang, China in 2020. He is a member of 10 National Academies as well as an Honorary Member of several professional societies.

Date and Place of birth:

13 October 1938 in Stuttgart/Germany

Professional Career

Since 2020          Director of the Herbert Gleiter International Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,     Shenyang, China

Since 2015          Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies, City University of Hong Kong

Since 2012          Founding Director of the Herbert Gleiter Institute of  Nanoscience  of
    Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, P.R. China

Since 2006          Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nanotechnology, KIT, Germany

2007 - 2010         Distinguished Professor, Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA

2005                     Distinguished Scholar of the Korean Research Foundation, Seoul, Korea

2004 - 2007         Kuang-pui Chair Professor, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, PR China

1998 - 2004         Director of the Institute of Nanotechnology, Research Center Karlsruhe, Germany

1994 - 1998         Member of the Executive Board of the Research Center Karlsruhe, Germany

1987 - 1994         Founding Director of the Institute of New Materials, Saarbruecken, Germany

1982                     Call to the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland

1980                     Call to the University of Hamburg-Harburg, Germany

1973 -1994          Professor/Director of the Institute of Material Science, University of the Saarland, Germany

1972                     Professor, Institute of Materials Science, University Bochum, Germany

1971                     Visiting Sientist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA

1970                     D. Sc. in Material Science at the University of Bochum, Germany

1966 - 1969         Research Fellow at Harvard University Cambridge, USA

1966                     Ph.D. in Physics at the Technical University of Stuttgart, Germany

1959-1965           Student of Mechanical Engineering and Physics at the Technical University of
     Stuttgart, Germany
 

Honours and Awards (selection)

2020                    Honorary Doctorate and Senior Fellow of Lanzhou University and Chinese Academy of Sciences

2018                    Jan Czochralski Medal and Award, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw University, Poland

2016                    Friendship Award and Medal of Merit of Chines Government, Jianzu, China

2015                    Honorary Doctorate of the City University of Hong Kong

2015                    Cothenius Medal from the German National Academy of Sciences

2014                    2014 Distinguished Lecture Award, City University Hong Kong

2012                    Award of Zijin Chair Professorship of the Herbert Gleiter Institute of Nanoscience of the
   Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

2012                    Nanomaterials Award 2012

2012                    Edward DeMille Campbell Award, American Society for Metals (ASM)

2009                    R.F. Mehl Award of the Minerals, Metals, Materials Society, USA

2009                    Blaise Pascal Medal of the European Academy of Sciences, Belgium

2009                    NANO Today Award of the Agency for Science, Technology Research, Singapore

2008                    Honorary Doctorate of the University of Muenster, Germany

2008                    Honorary Doctorate of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland

2008                    Achievement Award NANOSPD Int. Steering Committee

2008                    Staudinger-Durrer  Award of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland

2008                    Von Hippel Award of the Materials Research Society, USA

2007                    Gold Medal of Acta Materialia

2006                    Humboldt Medal of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany

2005                    Distinguished Scholar of the Korean Research Foundation

2004                    Member and Honorary Professor/Doctor  of Lanzhou University, PR China

2004                    H. Lee Lecture Award of Chinese Academy of Science

2004                    Honorary Professor at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, PR China

2003                    Nanomaterials Award of the Deutsche Bank, Germany

2002                    Honorary Doctorate of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany

2000                    Van Horn Award of Case Western University Cleveland, USA

1999                    Werner Heisenberg Medal of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany

1998                    Heyn Medal of the German Society for Materials Science

1995                    Gold Medal of the Federation of European Material Societies (FEMS), Belgium

1993                    Vinci of Excellence Award of the Hennessy-Vuitton Foundation,  France

1993                    Max-Planck-Research Prize of the Humboldt Foundation and the Max Planck-Society, Germany

1992                    Member of the President’s Council of the University of Illinois, USA

1992                    TMS Lecture Award of the US Minerals, Metals and Materials Society

1991                    Order of Merit of Saarland, Germany

1988                    Leibniz Prize of the German National Science Foundation (DFG)

1984                    Alcoa Prize of the Alcoa Foundation, USA

1979                    Karl-Schurz Award of the University of Wisconsin, USA

1972                    Masing Prize of the German Society for Metals

Memberships in National Academies

1998                   Member of the German National Academy of Sciences – Leopoldia, Germany

2004                   Member of the US National Academy of Engineering

2004                   Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

2006                   Member of the Indian National Academy of Engineering

2007-12              Vice President of the German National Academy of Sciences

2009                   Member of the European Academy of Sciences

2009                   Member of the Indian Academy of Sciences

2011                   Member of the Indian Science Academy

2014                   Member of the Academia Europaea

2014                   Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts

2015                   Member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences 

Honorary Memberships

1985                   Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science

1994                   Honorary Member of the Materials Research Society of India

1996                   Honorary Fellow of the Materials Research Society of India

2008                   Honorary Member of the Materials Research Society (MRS), USA

2009                   Honorary Member of the German Materials Society

2011                   Honorary Member of the American Nano Society

2011                   Fellow of the Indian Society of Mathematical Modelling

2011                   Fellow of the Indian Society of Mathematical Modelling and Simulation

2011                   Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS), USA

Founding of a New Research Institute

Founding of the “Herbert  Gleiter Institute of Nanoscience” in 2012 at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. This Institute is planned to have a size and a structure of a Max Planck Institute in Germany.

International Ranking

Web of Science Citation Index

Sum of all citations:  27 800

h - index:  73

Number of publications:  352

Listed among the Top 100 Materials Scientists 

                                                   -   on  rank 15 world wide

                                                   -   on  rank  2 in Europe

                                                   -   on  rank  1 in nanoscience world wide

Three most Highly Cited Publications

Nanocrystalline materials

H. Gleiter

Progress in Materials Science 33  223-315 (1989)

Times cited 3500

Nanostructured materials. Basic Concepts and Microstructure

H. Gleiter

Acta Materialia  48  1-29  (2000)

Times cited 2300

Ceramics ductile at low temperatures

J. Karch, R. Birringer, H. Gleiter

Nature  330  556-558  (1987)

Times cited 1200

Scientific Contributions

• Probing the Limits of Quantum Physics by diffraction experiments with nano-clusters with sizes of up to 20 million atomic mass units.
• Proposing and pioneering a New Kind of non-crystalline Materials (Nanoglasses) with defect/chemical microstructures similarly to the ones of today’s crystalline materials. Nanoglasses permit the development of new technologies based on non-crystalline materials instead of today’s (crystalline materials based) technologies.
• Pioneering and development  of a new class of materials: Nanostructured Materials
• Proposal of today’s accepted atomistic  model of the atomic structure of  grain boundaries:  the Structural Unit Model of Grain Boundaries
• Development of the Dislocation Pair Model of all modern High Temperature Superalloys

Publications/Exhibitions about Herbert Gleiter

• A.Nordmann, Perspectives on Sciences  17, 2009, 123 -  MIT Press Journals, doi:10.1162/posc.2009.17.2.123

• Nanotechnologien im Kontext,  A.Nordmann, J.Shummer, A.Schwarz Eds., Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 2006, Berlin, Germany; ISBN 3-89838-074-2
• Invisible Origins of Nanotechnology: Herbert Gleiter, https://www.philosophie.tu-darmstadt.de
• Pionier der Nanowissenschaften, Chemie.de

• German Museum Munich,

           Center of New Technologies – Permanent Exhibition on Nano- and

           Biotechnology.: The discovery of Nanomaterials by Herbert Gleiter

• Listed in Wikipedia and various  “ Who is Who“
• DIE ZEIT: Auf zu neuen Dimensionen, www.zeit de/2005/26/nano