In memory of Prof. Georg Wahl

Georg Wahl
1st February 1938 – 8th October 2018

Preface

Prof. Michael L. Hitchman
Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

In the mid-1970s I was working at the RCA Laboratories in Zurich and was developing my electrochemical interests. I moved on to a burgeoning field of commercial development with electrochemically based electrochromic displays. However, that came to an abrupt halt when I conclusively showed that the materials being used were thermodynamically unstable! At that point I had talked myself out of a job and I needed quickly to find alternative research to occupy me. Fortunately, I became aware of work in an adjoining lab on CVD which I saw was a process with features very much akin to those found in electrochemistry; indeed, at that time CVD was often referred to as ‘gas plating’ by analogy with electroplating…
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Essay

1. Remembering Georg Wahl
Prof. Andrey Kaul
Chemistry Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

It happens that in a person’s life there are events that have a decisive influence on the whole subsequent life path. The astonishing discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in 1986 made me, together with my research team at the Chemistry Department of Moscow State University, stop many years-research in the field of solid-state ionics and ceramic solid electrolytes and switch to the chemistry of HT superconductors, in particular, to the development of chemical methods for obtaining thin HTSC films…
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2. In Memory of Georg Wahl
Dr. Sergey Samoilenkov
SuperOx, Moscow, Russia 

I worked under the leadership of Professor Dr. Georg Wahl from 1996 to 2005, during several periods. Our relationship, though, stretched beyond that time period and much farther than the scientific scope of my work. In both cases it was due to the unusually attractive personality of Georg Wahl…
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3. Professor George Wahl
Dr. Vladimir Fuflyigin
Gener8, Inc, Boston, MA, USA

It is easy to look back and to tell what role a particular person has played in your life or what kind of person he was, or what kind of difference he made to your life. It is usually more difficult to do so when you are face-to face with a person during his lifetime. That was not certainly the case with Georg Wahl
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4. From superconducting CVD layers on carbon fibers to anti-adhesive scratch resistant surfaces for cooking devices. 20 years collaboration with Georg Wahl
Prof. Rainer Gadow
Institut fuer Fertigungstechnologie keramischer Bauteile, Universitaet, Stuttgart, Germany

In 1981 in the Institute fuer Chemische Technik of Universitaet Karlsruhe (T.H.) nowadays KIT, Prof. Erich Fitzer, managing director, introduced an industrial research partner and incoming new visiting lecturer from BBC Corp. Heidelberg Germany to me, who was famous for his firm squeezing handshake. His name was Dr. Georg Wahl
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5. Memories of Georg Wahl
Prof. Lorenz Singheiser
Institute of Energy and Climate Research, IEK 2, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany

After finishing my PhD thesis at University of Erlangen at the end of 1980, I started on the 1st of October at Brown Boveri research center in Heidelberg as a member of Georg Wahl’s research group. This group was involved in CVD research on semiconductor layers as well as on abrasive layers for hard facing steels. A new research topic was high temperature corrosion of nickel base superalloys in helium containing traces of methane as well as water for high temperature gas cooled reactors, which were under development at the Research Center in Jülich, as well as other institutes and companies in Germany and Great Britain
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6. Relationship and Work with Georg Wahl
Dr. Oliver Stadel
Gymnasium Lehrte, Lehrte, Germany

I started my dissertation at the Technical University of Braunschweig, IOPW (Institut für Oberflächentechnik und Plasmatechnische Werkstoffentwicklung) at the start of the winter of 1996, and I had the good fortune that Georg was my boss. He was very talented in acquiring scientific projects, so almost all doctoral candidates led a project. They were paid by the projects and Georg usually transferred the control of the project budget to the project leader. Working in his group meant doing freely applied science with one’s own budget! I am very grateful for this freedom, which was unusual at the university
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