In brief
Heinrich Rohrer (6 June 1933 – 16 May 2013) was a Swiss physicist best known for co-inventing the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in 1981, a groundbreaking instrument that enabled the visualization of individual atoms on surfaces using quantum tunneling effects, fundamentally advancing nanoscience and surface physics.
Born in Buchs, St. Gallen, Switzerland, as the third child and twin brother in a family that later moved to Zürich in 1949, Rohrer developed an early interest in physics amid a rural upbringing. He earned his BSc in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich in 1955 and completed his PhD in experimental physics there in 1960, with a thesis on superconductivity.
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Hero photograph: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons
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