Discussion journal of the Mössbauer Community

[Nagy Denes Lajos <nagy AT rmki.kfki.hu>]

In Memoriam Ulrich Gonser

It is with deepest sadness that the International Board on the Applications of 
the Mossbauer Effect (IBAME) announces the passing of its Honorary Member


                      Professor Ulrich Gonser


             Saarland University, Saarbrucken, Germany

                   who died on 12 December 2007.

Ulrich Gonser was born in Munster, Germany, on 10 December 1922. He received 
his Ph.D. degree at the University of Munster in 1953. From 1954 to 1969 he was 
a member and, later, leader of research groups of the Physics Institute of the 
University of Illinois, Urbana, the Atomic International, NAA, Canoga Park, 
California, and, finally, the Science Center, Thousand Oaks, California. Since 
1969 he has held the position of a Professor of applied physics and technical 
physics at the Saarland University in Saarbrucken, Germany.

Uli Gonser was a giant of Mossbauer spectroscopy. He published more than 400 
papers, books and chapters of books in our field. He was the first who used 
Mossbauer spectroscopy to study lattice defects, he initiated the first 
systematic study of the magnetic phase transitions of fcc iron, he developed 
Mossbauer polarimetry as a tool to determine the orientation of magnetization, 
he triggered the first Mossbauer studies of the potential optical storage 
material iron-doped lithium niobate, etc.

Professor Gonser's students and followers may be found at all continents. 
Members of many flourishing Mossbauer groups may profess themselves Uli's 
successors. He not only disseminated the method but also helped creating and 
organizing new groups and supplying them with exciting and promising research 
topics.  The Mossbauer Community thanked him for his unsurpassable services by 
having elected him to one of the first Honorary Members of IBAME.

We shall miss him. Our thoughts are with his family.

The funeral services will be held on Saturday, 29 December 2007 at 11:00 am in 
the Waldfriedhof Lenggries, Germany.

                                 D.L. Nagy
                               Chair, IBAME