Hans S. Rupprecht

Biography

Dr. Hans S. Rupprecht is remembered for his work with semiconductor materials and devices. He was born on March 30, 1930 in Nurnberg, Germany. Rupprecht received his PhD in physics from the University of Erlangen. He worked briefly at Siemens Research Center until joining IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Lab in Yorktown Heights, New York in 1960. While at IBM, Rupprecht developed injection laser structures and ion implantation technology. In 1984, the IEEE recognized Rupprecht’s work and awarded him with the Jack A. Morton Award “For pioneering work in gallium aluminum arsenide heterojunctions and high efficiency light emitting diodes and injection lasers prepared by liquid phase epitaxy.”

Rupprecht returned to Germany in 1985, when he became the director of Fraunhofer Institute in Freiburg. Rupprecht held this position for ten years, and as the director, he expanded the Institute’s semiconductor program and telecommunication subsystems. During this time he was also a physics professor at the University of Freiburg. Rupprecht retired in 1996, and returned to New York. He spent the rest of his life in Yorktown Heights until he died on December 9, 2010.