Helmuth Möhwald
German physicist and university teacher
Helmuth Möhwald (January 19, 1946 in Goldenöls – March 27, 2018) was a German physicist and founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. His research focus on molecular interfaces, ultrathin films, coated colloids and capsules, membranes, and nanostructured and functional interfaces. Together with Gero Decher and Yuri Lvov, Möhwald is credited with developing the technique of layer-by-layer assembly for multicomponent films made up of polyions (such as DNA, RNA, and proteins), as well as other charged materials.
Education and career
Möhwald was born in Goldenöls in present-day Zlatá Olešnice in the Czech Republic. He studied physics at the University of Göttingen, where he received his PhD in 1974 under the supervision of Erich Sackmann. He then habilitated at the University of Ulm. After his stay as a postdoc (1974/75) at IBM San Jose, he became a research assistant (1975-1978) at the University of Ulm and research associate (1978-1981) at Dornier Flugzeugwerke. He also became C3 professor for physics (1981-1987) at the Technical University of Munich and C4 professor for physical chemistry (1987-1993) at the University of Mainz.
From 1993 to 2014, Möhwald was a scientific member and director at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. With his retirement on February 1, 2014, the Interfaces department was closed.
“Helmuth Möhwald” enters the record as german physicist and university teacher. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Helmuth, Möhwald and German can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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