Jörg Kärger
Jörg Kärger is a German physicist.
Life and work
Jörg Kärger was born in Erfurt. After attending school in Erfurt and Leipzig, he studied physics at the University of Leipzig, whose member he remained in the subsequent years, interrupted by guest stays in Prague, Leningrad, Moscow, Paris and Fredericton/Canada. His doctorate in 1970 with the dissertation "The diffusion of water at 13X zeolites: investigated by the method of nuclear magnetic resonance with the aid of pulsed field gradients" under the supervision of Harry Pfeifer was followed in 1978 by his doctorate B as well as the appointment to an extraordinary professorship in 1989 and a full professorship for experimental physics / interface physics in 1994.His scientific career was determined by his work on the use of NMR spectroscopy to measure molecular diffusion in nanoporous materials, which he had already begun during his doctorate. After his measurements, existing ideas had to be corrected by orders of magnitude, which led to a paradigm shift in the understanding of molecular mass transport in such systems. The mechanism of two-range diffusion he applied became a widely used model for NMR diffusion measurements in complex systems, including their use for magnetic resonance imaging. His monographs Diffusion in Zeolites and Other Microporous Solids and Diffusion in Nanoporous Materials became core literature in sorption research, i.e. in the investigation of the behavior of molecules in interaction with interfaces. His work was recognized with the award of the Gustav Hertz Prize of the GDR Physical Society, the Breck Award of the International Zeolite Association and the Max Planck Research Award. He is the author of over 500 papers in periodicals, author/editor of 10 books.
Together with Paul Heitjans, he initiated the Diffusion Fundamentals conference series, which is devoted to the phenomena of random movement and propagation in their entirety. The objects considered can thus be of a material or immaterial nature and range from atoms and molecules as the traditional objects of diffusion research to new species in the animal and plant world and new words in our vocabulary. Since the 6th conference 2015 in Dresden the conference series with the accompanying Diffusion-Fundamentals-Online-Journal has been under the auspices of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig.
The Dresden conference gave rise to the edition of a book on "Diffusive Spreading in Nature, Technology and Society", for which he, together with Armin Bunde, Jürgen Caro and Gero Vogl, was awarded the Literature Prize of the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie in 2019.
In 2005, Kärger was awarded the Theodor Litt Prize of the University of Leipzig for his merits in teaching. His Sunday lectures at the Faculty of Physics and Earth Sciences with up to 500 listeners had a special impact on the media. In one of them, with coordinated bicycle bells, the lecture visitors formed the world's largest bicycle bell orchestra for entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Jörg Kärger has been married to the dentist Birge Kärger, née Koch, since 1971. The marriage produced four children.
Functions and Memberships
- 1996 to 1999 Dean of the Faculty of Physics and Earth Sciences at the University of Leipzig,
- 1995 to 1998 Chairman of DECHEMA's subject division "Zeolites",
- 2002 to 2006 Ombudsman of the University of Leipzig
- 2007 to 2010 Member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Magnetic Resonance at the University of Leipzig.
- since 2000 member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig.
- since 2018 head of the IUPAC working group "Diffusion in Nanoporous Solids".
- Member of the Protestant Research Academy since 2003.
- 1991 Founding member of the Promotion Circle of the Leipzig University Choir.
Publications
- Jörg Kärger, Douglas Morris Ruthven: Diffusion in Zeolites and Other Microporous Solids. John Wiley, New York, USA,
- Paul Heitjans, Jörg Kärger : Diffusion in Condensed Matter: Methods, Materials, Models. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2005,
- Jörg Kärger : Leipzig, Einstein, Diffusion. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig, 2007,,
- Jörg Kärger, Douglas Morris Ruthven, Doros N. Theodorou: Diffusion in Nanoporous Materials, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2012,
- Armin Bunde, Jürgen Caro, Jörg Kärger, Gero Vogl : Diffusive Spreading in Nature, Technology and Society. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2018,
- J. Kärger: Zur Bestimmung der Diffusion in einem Zweibereichsystem mit Hilfe von gepulsten Feldgradienten, Ann. Physik 7/24 1–4
- J. Kärger, J. Caro: Interpretation and Correlation of Zeolitic Diffusivities Obtained from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Sorption Experiments, J. Chem. Soc. Faraday I, 73 1363–1376
- W. Heink, J. Kärger, H. Pfeifer: Application of Zeugmatography to Study Kinetics of Physical Adsorption, Chem. Engin. Sci. 33 1019–1023
- J. Kärger, W. Heink: The Propagator Representation of Molecular Transport in Microporous Crystallites, J. Magn. Res. 51 1–7
- V. Kukla, J. Kornatowski, D. Demuth, I. Girnus, H. Pfeifer, L.V.C. Rees, S. Schunk, K.K. Unger, J. Kärger, NMR Studies of Single-File Diffusion in Unidimensional Channel Zeolites, Science 272 702–704.
- R. Valiullin, S. Naumov, P. Galvosas, J. Kärger, H.-J. Woo, F. Porcheron, P. A. Monson: Exploration of Molecular Dynamics during Transient Sorption of Fluids in Mesoporous Materials, Nature 443 965–968.
- Feil, F.; Naumov, S.; Michaelis, J.; Valiullin, R.; Enke, D.; Kärger, J.; Bräuchle, C.: Single-Particle and Ensemble Diffusivities−Test of Ergodicity. Angew. Chem., Intern. Edit. 51 1152–1155
- J. Kärger, T. Binder, C. Chmelik, F. Hibbe, H. Krautscheid, R. Krishna, and J. Weitkamp, Microimaging of Transient Guest Profiles to Monitor Mass Transfer in Nanoporous Materials, Nature Mater. 13 333–343.
- C. Chmelik, M. Liebau, M. Al-Naji, J. Möllmer, D. Enke, R. Gläser, J. Kärger, One-Shot Measurement of Effectiveness Factors of Chemical Conversion in Porous Catalysts ChemCatChem 10 5602–5609